Student Learning

Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies

English home | Literacy Resource home | Overview | Assessment | Key Concepts | Teaching Strategies

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

VELS 1 and 2 – Reading strategies scaffolding: Collaborative learning and teaching

This section includes information on some reading strategies a teacher can use in the classroom to stimulate learning.

 

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.

 

Teaching strategies to enact apprenticeship in classrooms

Reading to

‘Reading to’ is a teaching strategy used:

  • during the whole class focus on reading

By reading to students the teacher is providing the highest level of scaffolding as it involves the whole class listening to a text read aloud by the teacher. The teacher models skilled reading behaviour, enjoyment and interest in a range of different styles of writing and types of text.

Reading to students is particularly effective for:

  • demonstrating a love and passion for reading
  • exposing students to a variety of texts that they are unable to read themselves
  • demonstrating the integration of sources of information
  • demonstrating fluency, phrasing and intonation
  • extending the student’s vocabulary
  • developing listening skills
  • developing awareness of different styles of writing and text forms
  • introducing texts with increasing complexity and abstract concepts
  • developing the ability to construct images of events and things outside the present time and space, i.e. to understand content that is decontextualised.

Steps:

  • Select a text which meets the needs and interests of the students.
  • Read it all through yourself before introducing the text to the students.
  • Evaluate whether the text chosen lends itself to reading out loud.
  • Consider and plan the vocabulary to be introduced and the questions to be posed to the students.
  • Encourage students to predict the text from the cover, title, and illustrations.
  • Use the illustrations to encourage prediction and interpretation. Encourage students to use the illustrations to add to their understanding.
  • Remember to discuss read-alouds with the class to enhance and expand students' understanding.
  • Encourage students to talk about the text and the language features of the text. Identify and discuss with students the conventions of various text forms, discuss meanings in texts relating them to their own experiences, model the use of information skills such as retrieving information from a text.
  • Learn more about the authors and illustrators. Read other works by favourite authors.

Shared reading

Shared reading is used:

  • during the whole class focus on reading
  • as an instructional approach with beginning readers during small group focus on reading.

This approach supports students to develop their capacity to read materials that may be too difficult for them to read independently.

Shared reading provides opportunities for the teacher and students to work together using an enlarged text. It can be used to demonstrate the reading process to students and, by prompting, engage them in problem solving on texts using meaning, structure and visual information cues. It can also be used to demonstrate how texts work (e.g. concepts about print and organisational features).

Once meaning is established, specific attention can be paid to analysing new or unfamiliar words in a text and showing students how to analyse letters, letter clusters and patterns and the sounds they make.

During small group focus on reading, shared reading can be used in conjunction with reading to students and language experience activities.

Shared reading can be done with a small or large group and can be using an article, poem, story etc. It is a technique that can be used with any level, age, ability or curriculum area.

Steps:

  • Select a text which has a teaching point that meets the needs of the students. Ensure that all students have a copy of the text or are able to clearly see the text e.g. overhead projector transparencies or in an enlarged book form.
  • Discuss with students the topic to find out prior knowledge.
  • State the purpose of the text. Share the learning intentions and the success criteria with the students.
  • Encourage students to predict the text from the cover, title, and illustrations.
  • Teacher reads the text with as few stops as possible. Encourage students to participate where appropriate.
  • Encourage students to talk about the text and the language features of the text.
    • Identify and discuss with students the conventions of various text forms.
    • Discuss meanings in texts relating them to their own experiences.
    • Model the use of information skills such as retrieving information from a text.
  • Through shared reading, the reading process, reading strategies and comprehension strategies are demonstrated.
Back to Top

Teaching strategies to enact guided participation in classrooms

Guided reading
The teacher guides students as they read, talk and think their way through a text. The teacher selects a text at the students’ instructional level, prepares the group for reading by establishing prior knowledge of the topic or text types, and briefly introduces the text then guides the students through it. Periods of independent reading are followed by discussion and teaching. Central to a guided reading session are the interactions between the group members.

Steps:

The teacher becomes familiar with the text prior to taking a guided reading session.

  • Select an appropriate text: unseen texts are generally used.
  • Students require an individual copy of the text. Texts should be selected at the students’ instructional level, i.e. one that the students cannot yet read independently.
  • The teacher identifies the supports and challenges in the text and selects teaching focuses based on the students’ learning needs.
  • The teacher leads a discussion on the topic of the text and students’ related experiences.
  • The teacher asks questions and makes comments to encourage students to read closely.
  • Students briefly discuss the title and summarise the plot.
  • The teacher provides:
    • meaning support by talking through the content or plot
    • structure support by asking questions that model the language structures of the text
    • visual support by discussing any new or unusual words that appear in the text.

The teacher makes explicit the purpose and teaching focus of this reading, e.g. to examine a certain text type or to analyse a character.

 

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.