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 4
Speaking and listening
- Speaking and listening strategies – English – outline of some strategies that can be used to develop student speaking and listening skills during reading and writing activities.
- Further speaking and listening strategies - explanation of some strategies that can be used to develop student speaking and listening skills during reading and writing activities.
- Speaking and listening strategies for all VELS domains – strategies that can be adapted to a single VELS domain or for programs that have multiple domains to support students in meeting the literacy demands of their learning.
Reading
- Reading - strategies that can be used to develop student reading skills.
- Reading strategies for all VELS domains – strategies that can be adapted to a single VELS domain or for programs that have multiple domains to support students in meeting the literacy demands of their learning.
- Reading for learning: Pause, Prompt, Praise – this is a strategy which aims to encourage students to monitor meaning from a text and to self-correct. It can be used any time the student is reading aloud.
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Reciprocal Teaching – describes an instructional approach that takes place in the form of a dialogue between teachers and students as they read, talk about and critically think about a text.
- Guided reading: Reciprocal teaching videos - In the following video clips teachers and their students demonstrate the strategies for reciprocal teaching: predicting, clarifying, question generating, and summarising.
- Collaborative Cloze – describes a student learning activity which highlights the strategy of reciprocal teaching.
- Teaching reading using the Four Resources Model: Code breaking – strategies, including ‘Word splash’, to help students break the code of the letters used in texts,.
- Teaching reading using the Four Resources Model: Text participating – strategies, including ‘Three level guides’ to help students make literate and inferential meanings of texts.
- Teaching reading using the Four Resources Model: Text using – strategies, including ‘Data charts’, to support students in their use of texts in real-life reading situations.
- Teaching reading using the Four Resources Model: Text analysing – strategies, including ‘Four corners debate’ and ‘Writing on reading’, to help students to critically analyse texts in order to understand how texts work.
Writing
- Writing - strategies that can be used to develop student writing skills.
- Writing strategies for all VELS domains – strategies that can be adapted to a single VELS domain or for programs that have multiple domains to support students in meeting the literacy demands of their learning
- Independent writing – describes the strategies of learning journals and writing for an audience that support students to deepen their learning and communicate with others.
- View teaching strategies for writing narratives in the English Developmental Continuum

