Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies

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VELS level 3 – Creating more complex noun groups: Adding on information

Moving towards literate language

An important development in students’ writing as they move towards more literate language is their growing control of the noun group. By expanding noun groups to include more content words, students are able to include more information within each clause. Not only is this a characteristic of written texts, it is also a vital resource for enhancing students’ reading comprehension of other written texts.

Professional learning

The text in the document below was produced by eight-year old John. It is an information report on pygmy possums, presented as an illustrated poster. In this text, John was doing more than retelling personally lived experience; he was reconstructing researched experience and had learned a new genre to do this, as well as a lot of new vocabulary to deal with the topic.

Download a transcript of John’s report on pygmy possums (Word - 34Kb)

Questions

• In this text, John has learnt a lot of technical scientific terms to deal with the topic. Make a list of these terms.
• John also shows evidence of developing control over noun group structure. Can you find any long noun groups in the written text? Underline them.
• Is John’s text closer to ‘spoken-like’ language or ‘literate’ (written) language?

Comparison activity

The following text has been written by Suzy, who is six years old:

We went to Werribee Park. When we got off the bus we went in the mansion. I liked the beds and the loungeroom and the stairs after that we went to the garden and I liked the flowers and the colours. Then we went to the bus we got our lunch and ate it all. Then we went to see the animals and we saw lambs sheep ducks a kangaroo emus goats camels water buffalo pigs guinea pigs zebras rhinoceros and after that we played on the swings and then we went to the island and we climbed the island and when Mandy and I climbed it the mud was all slippery and we had to come down and go on to the top and we found a cave and there was a door in the cave and there was steps on the island and nearly everyone went into the cave and Stephen and I was the monster and it started to rain so we went home and all of us were tired. The end.

(F. Christie, 2000)

John has taken up a different relationship with his reader from that adopted by Suzy in writing her personal recount. Look at both texts.

• What language features of Suzy’s text make it seem personal?
• How does John make his text seem impersonal?

One of the distinguishing characteristics of this text is that John learnt lots of technical, scientific terms such as ¡°arboreal¡±, ¡°torpor¡±, ¡°dry schlerophyll¡± and ¡°rainforests¡±.

Another important development in this text is John’s growing control of the noun group. So John’s information report is full of longer noun groups like, ¡°the Eastern pygmy possum¡±, ¡°thickly timbered forests of all types¡±, ¡°an agile climber¡± and ¡°a cone shaped head¡±.

By expanding his noun groups to include more content words in this way, John is able to include more information within each clause. Not only is this a characteristic of written texts, it is also a vital resource for enhancing students’ reading comprehension of other written texts.

John has taken up a different relationship with his reader from that adopted by Suzy in writing her personal recount. The language features of Suzy’s text that make it seem personal are her use of personal pronouns such as ¡°I¡±, and ¡°we¡±, and the inclusion of several emotional reactions, ¡°I liked the beds and the lounge room¡±, and ¡°I liked the colours and the flowers¡±.

John, on the other hand, makes his text seem impersonal by writing it in the third person and not including any words which carry strong feelings, emotions or judgements.