Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Key Concepts

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

VELS level 5 & 6

• Victorian Essential Learning Standards Stages of learning: Building breadth and depth & developing pathways – includes information on the key characteristics of students as they progress through the particular stages of learning.
• Victorian Essential Learning Standards English and Communications domain – includes introduction to the English and Communication domains, learning focus statements and standards at Levels 5 and 6.
• Zone of Proximal Development & Scaffolding (Vygotsky, Bruner, Rogoff) – describes in detail the theories of scaffolding from Vygotsky, Bruner and Rogoff.
• Teacher scaffolding in 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 Levels 5 and 6, as well as extract of learning focus and standards for Speaking and listening for Levels 5 and 6.
• 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.
• Written language development: Scaffolding specialised language – looks at scaffolding principles in the classroom and provides some examples of scaffolding for written language development and includes a professional learning activity.
• Written Language Development: Nominalisation – defines nominalisation and provides advice on use and examples in the classroom and includes a professional learning activity.
• Reading for learning (Luke and Freebody, Munro, Rose) – contains information on the various theories behind literacy teaching and learning and provides practical ways of exploring these theories with students. It includes a professional learning activity.
• Comprehension - the essence of reading – includes research on comprehension in relation to Levels 5 and 6 English Reading standards.
• Selecting appropriate texts to support literacy learning – deals with the process of selecting appropriate texts for Levels 5 & 6, the characteristics of the texts and the factors which influence text selection. It also includes a professional learning activity.
• Literacy within the Victorian Essential Learning Standards - All domains – highlights the literacy demands within all domains.