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Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies

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VELS level 1 & 2 – English Developmental Continuum

This section provides information on the English Development Continuum. It includes details of the appropriate teaching strategies for reading, writing, speaking and listening.

The English Developmental Continuum P-10 provides evidence-based indicators of progress, linked to powerful teaching strategies, aligned to the progression points and the standards for the English Domain of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards.

Reading

Teaching strategies for reading are linked to the following indicators of progress:

  • text level knowledge
  • word level knowledge
  • phonological knowledge
  • self management and direction
  • letter and letter name knowledge.

Teaching strategies include:

  • getting knowledge ready for reading: linking the title and picture, predicting what the story might tell them
  • tuning into the text: questioning the pictures, retelling sentences, reading and finishing incomplete sentences, inferring feelings, identifying and predicting repetition, retelling and summarising, practising reading aloud
  • consolidating and reviewing the text: retelling the story, describing emotional response to the text.

Writing

Teaching strategies for writing are linked to the following indicators of progress:

  • ideas communicated in writing
  • conventions of writing
  • writing strategy
  • conventions of spelling.

Teaching strategies include:

  • organising phase: building oral language knowledge, interpreting words and pictures, establishing a purpose for writing, awareness of writing strategies, strategic questioning and cueing
  • composing phase: articulating and rehearsing what they want to write
  • learning consolidation phase: reviewing the value of writing.

Speaking and Listening

Teaching strategies for speaking and listening are linked to the following indicators of progress:

  • communicating orally
  • purposes of communication
  • ideas communicated.

Teaching strategies include:

  • getting knowledge ready: ask and answer questions to predict the story, comprehend word meaning and provide synonyms
  • tuning in to ideas: collate and recall what they know about the story, 4W&H picture questions, perceptual comprehension, visual memory
  • consolidating and reviewing: recall and retell, use prior knowledge to infer.
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Professional learning

Identify a group of students with similar learning needs in a dimension, go to the English Developmental Continuum and select the relevant teaching strategies that will support them to move to the next level of the continuum.

See the information on the departments English Development Continuum.