Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Key Concepts

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Key concepts: VELS 1 & 2 | VELS 3 | VELS 4 | VELS 5 & 6

VELS level 4

• Victorian Essential Learning Standards stages of learning: Building breadth and depth – includes information on the key characteristics of students as they progress through the particular stages of learning.
• Victorian Essential Learning Standards - English and Communications domains – includes introduction to the English and Communication domains, learning focus statements and standards at Level 4.
• Zone of Proximal Development & Scaffolding (Vygotsky, Bruner, Rogoff) – describes in detail the theories of scaffolding from Vygotsky, Bruner and Rogoff.
• Teachers scaffolding in the classroom – identifies two types of scaffolding: ‘designed in’ and ‘point of need’, their benefits and how to use them effectively.
• Speaking and listening – includes the types of activity that promote speaking and listening at Level 4, as well as extract of Level 4 learning focus and standard for Speaking and listening.
• Designed in scaffolding: an example using speaking and listening as preparation for writing – explains ‘Designed in scaffolding’ using a student transcript and includes a professional learning activity.
• Genre teaching and learning cycle for writing – includes information for teaching students how to construct their own texts both with and without the aid of the teacher and also includes a professional learning activity.
• Commonsense versus specialised/technical language – contains information on the differences between commonsense and technical language, its importance in teaching and learning, and practical exercises which demonstrate these differences. It also includes a professional learning activity.
• Increasing technicality: Compressing information – includes information on the importance of helping students to understand noun groups and includes two professional learning activities which illustrate the key points.
• Reading to learn (Luke and Freebody, Munro, Rose) – contains information on the various theories behind literacy learning and teaching and provides practical ways of exploring these theories with students.
• Reading comprehension – includes research on comprehension in relation to Level 4 English Reading standard.
• Selecting appropriate texts to support literacy learning – deals with the process of selecting appropriate texts for Level 4, the characteristics of the texts, text and genre structure and the factors which influence text selection and includes a professional learning activity.
• Literacy demands within the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (All domains) – highlights the literacy demands within all domains.