Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies

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Literacy teaching strategies: VELS 1 & 2 | VELS 3 | VELS 4 | VELS 5 & 6

VELS level 1 & 2 – Writing strategies scaffolding: Collaborative learning and teaching

Three types of collaborative, social learning:

1. Apprenticeship: a community process of learning
2. Guided participation: an interpersonal process of learning
3. Appropriation: a personal process of learning

Modelled writing

Modelled writing involves the teacher writing on a large piece of paper, whiteboard, or large computer monitor, making explicit the considerations and thinking behind a piece of text as well as articulating the process. The writing is the teacher’s, and the students are observers of the strategies demonstrated, the processes used and the product created.

Interactive Writing

Interactive writing involves the teacher and small groups of students jointly composing a large print text on a subject of interest to the students and sharing responsibility for the recording at various points in the writing.

Teachers quickly record the words that students know how to write, and engage students in problem solving and recording the words that provide challenges and opportunities for new learning. This eases the transition to independent writing by:

• making explicit how written language works
• constructing words using orthographic and phonological knowledge
• producing a text that can be read again.

Shared Writing

Shared writing involves the teacher (as scribe) and students collaboratively composing a piece of writing. Meanings, topics, ideas and choices of words are discussed, negotiated and decided by the teacher and students. The approach enables the students to participate in writing experiences, resulting in much richer writing than students would be able to write for themselves. Students can focus on composing and thinking without being encumbered by the complexities of the recording aspects of the writing process.

Professional learning

Teaching approaches to enact apprenticeship in the classroom

View the modelled writing video clip that illustrates how an early years teacher apprentices the whole class into reading, writing, speaking and listening through the use of modelled writing.

Watch the video clip: Modelled Writing – Helen [DR. video link not yet avaiable]
Year 1/2, Teaching Writers in Early Years

After viewing the video clip, identify:

• the role of the teacher
• the writing being explicitly (and tacitly) taught
• any other features of apprenticeship evident in these interactions.

Teaching approaches to enact guided participation in classroom

View the Interactive writing and shared writing video clips that illustrate how teachers consciously guide individual students within small group settings into reading, writing, speaking and listening through various approaches and strategies.

Watch the video clip: Interactive Writing – Helen [DR. video link not yet avaiable]
Year 1/2, Teaching Writers in Early Years

Watch the video clip: Shared Writing – Kirsten [DR. video link not yet avaiable]
Prep, Teaching Speakers and Listeners in the Early Years

After viewing the video excerpts, identify:

• the role of the teacher
• the writing being explicitly (and tacitly) taught
• any other features of guided participation evident in these interactions.

Teaching approaches to support appropriation in classrooms

Provide opportunities for students to apply their new knowledge about language in their speaking/listening and in their writing.