Embedded Files
New - Writing Model from AERO
New - Writing Model from AERO
Writing Fundamentals
Writing Fundamentals
Episode 2: Alice Jury - Heavy is the English Head | Podcast on Spotify
Listen to our very own
Listen to our very own
Alice Jury!
Alice Jury!
Supporting Students with Language Difficulties - Resources
Supporting Students with Language Difficulties - Resources
Global Connections through Intergrated Learning
Global Connections through Intergrated Learning
Updates to Phonics Plus lesson plans
Updates to Phonics Plus lesson plans
Literacy Teaching Toolkit
Literacy Teaching Toolkit
ARC will be housing the new Literacy Toolkit. Keep watching this space for updates and resources.
Resources for Victoria's approach to reading can also be found here.
Professional Reading
Professional Reading
Students' ability to write – and write well – across school subjects is critical for their success in school.
This is because writing is how students learn to synthesise knowledge, critically analyse information and develop sophisticated logical relationships between ideas to express opinions.
The skill of writing is also crucial for students' further education and careers. Writing enables us to share our stories, communicate scientific findings, develop sports coaching game plans, pitch sponsorship proposals and do many other important things. It allows us to communicate, collaborate and innovate.
While the teaching of writing in school is often the role of English teachers, the reality is that writing is critical to many learning areas.
It is a skill that needs to be embedded across subject areas through explicit teaching, regular practice and assessment tasks.
Senior English Resources
Senior English Resources
Phonics Plus Lesson Plans
Phonics Plus Lesson Plans
So far, the Phonics Plus website on Arc has:
video example of Phonics Plus in the classroom
10 lesson plan unit
resources to compliment the sample unit, including fluency passages and assessment tasks
scope and sequences for Foundation, Grade 1 and Grade 2
VCAA learning modules: Phonic and Word Knowledge strands
VCAA learning modules: Phonic and Word Knowledge strands
VCAA has released learning modules linked to the Phonic and Word Knowledge strands in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0.
Module 1: Exploring the Curriculum and Classroom at Level with Emina McLean
Module 2: Exploring the Curriculum and Classroom working towards Level with Pamela Snow
Learning difficulties in litearcy
Learning difficulties in litearcy
Access information and resources related to learning difficulties in literacy: Learning difficulties in literacy (education.vic.gov.au)
Knowledge for Teachers Podcast - Emina McLean on the challenges of research translation in literacy
Knowledge for Teachers Podcast - Emina McLean on the challenges of research translation in literacy
Reading and the Victorian Curriculum 2.0
Reading and the Victorian Curriculum 2.0
F-2 Reading Approach
F-2 Reading Approach
Reading is a foundational life skill and a source of pleasure and wonder.
It provides access to information, generates imagination, builds knowledge, enables creativity and shapes opinions.
The ‘Big 6’:
• Oral language – knowing and using spoken words to express knowledge, ideas and emotions
• Phonemic awareness –which is the knowledge of sounds (phonemes)
• Phonics – knowing the sound (phoneme) and letter (grapheme) relationships
• Fluency – reading accurately and at an appropriate rate with expression
• Vocabulary – understanding words in isolation and in context
• Comprehension – making meaning from text which includes developing knowledge of grammar.
To find out more about Victoria's approach to teaching reading F-2, click on this link.
English – Connections between the achievement standards and content descriptions, Foundation to Level 2
English – Connections between the achievement standards and content descriptions, Foundation to Level 2
Click on this link to access English curriculum resources, including the connections between the achievement standards and content descriptors.
English Curriculum 2.0
English Curriculum 2.0
Victorian Curriculum - English Version 2.0 - Resources (vcaa.vic.edu.au)
The comparison document provides educators with and overview of both the existing curriculum and the new 2.0 curriculum with a commentary at each level as to what the differences are at the content description and achievement standard.
Literacy Teaching Toolkit Map
Literacy Teaching Toolkit Map
Fluency in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit
Fluency in the Literacy Teaching Toolkit
The case for fluency
It is an important goal for children to become accurate, efficient, and therefore fluent readers. Facilitating repeated practice of reading aloud is key to developing fluency. The goal for all children is for decoding to become easy and automatic, so they can free up their attention to focus on the meaning of the text.
While easy and automatic reading allows readers to attend to the meaning of texts, fluency alone does not indicate good comprehension. As noted by Afflerbach, Pearson and Paris (2008), ‘fluent reading begins with strategies that integrate intentions, actions, and goals, and fluency increases with repeated practice’ (p.369).
Developing fluency
Opportunities for developing reading fluency include:
Peer reading
Choral reading
Readers’ theatre
Term 2, 2024
The Literacy teaching toolkit Levels 7 to 10 provides teachers with strategies to support the development of literate practices across the areas of the Victorian Curriculum.
MID Term 3 2023
Literacy is the:
“ability to interpret and create texts with appropriateness, accuracy, confidence, fluency and efficacy for learning in and out of school, and for participating in Australian life more generally” (VCAA, 2016).
Much more than being able to read and write, being literate also means:
having the ability to develop knowledge and understanding
being able to participate actively in the workplace, community and society (UNESCO, 2004).
Literate practices are:
the knowledge, skills and strategies people use to understand, create, respond to, and manipulate texts.
The literate practices we use vary depending on the type of text being read or produced; for example, print, digital, oral, or multimodal.
WONDERINGS....
What do you consider to be a “good text” in your subject?
What literacy challenges do your students have to meet in your subject? What texts do they have to understand and produce? What strategies do you use to support your students meet these challenges?
Does your school provide opportunities for you and your colleagues to develop a shared understanding of literacy and discuss the literacy challenges within your subject area?
Literacy Teaching Toolkit
Literacy Teaching Toolkit
Phonological awareness games
Phonological awareness games
Phonological awareness is developed through reading and writing. It can also be developed through targeted oral language activities. Collaborative and engaging oral language games give students an opportunity to practice their phonological awareness skills and consolidate their learning through repetition.
Oral language games to develop phonological awareness
Oral language games to develop phonological awareness
The following oral language games include one or more aspects of phonological awareness. Each game can be easily modified to target a different phonological skill.
Bean bag toss
Syllable swap
Syllable match
Syllable bingo
Word web
Letter dice roll
Onset rime hopscotch
Rhyming Objects
For further information about these games, click on this link
For further information about Phonological awareness, click on this link
Helping Students to Become Independent Learners in Literacy
Helping Students to Become Independent Learners in Literacy
Helping students to become independent learners in literacy (education.vic.gov.au) This page provides guidance on how and when to release responsibility for learning to students to help them work towards independence.
The goal of any intervention is to help students to close gaps in their knowledge or skills and become as independent as possible. This is particularly important for students with specific learning disabilities (for example, dyslexia) as they will build a greater sense of agency over their skills and abilities.
Victorian Literacy Portal for School Leaders
Victorian Literacy Portal for School Leaders
The Victorian literacy portal is your source for all things related to reading, writing, speaking and listening.
It brings together a range of literacy resources, activities and programs, helping early childhood educators, teachers, principals, students, parents and carers to access the information and services they need quickly and easily.
Literacy portal (education.vic.gov.au)
The Portal hosts a comprehensive suite of links to various initiatives and programs that are updated regularly to reflect current teaching and learning, curriculum links, assessment and further support for schools and families.
English Online Interview
English Online Interview
English Online Interview
This year, it was mandatory for every Foundation and Year One student to have an English Online Interview (EOI) completed on them.
There are plenty of supporting resources to assist teachers in utilising the resulting data to support their explicit teaching programs, such as the EOI Guide, which can be accessed using the following links - English-Online-Interview-Guide 2022-081222.pdf (education.vic.gov.au) or EOI Microsoft Word Version.
Additonially, there is an online course available for relevant to complete, which provides advice in analysing the data to improve student literacy outcomes. Click the following link to access this course - EOI Online Course.
If you would like any support in accessing or analysing data please contact Alana, Emma or Fiona.
Whole Class-Mini Lesson
In this video, the teacher explicitily scaffolds whole class learning on reading through a mini lesson. The learning intention and success criteria are stated and explained and students are guided to use their new learning during the independent reading stage of the lesson.
Independent Reading Implementation
Independent Reading Implementation
For independent reading to be successful in your classroom, teach the practice and allow time for the practice to be embedded.
Start early in the year and be consistent with the implementation so that all students know the expectations.
As it is a pivotal part of every reading lesson, it needs to be introduced explicitly.
Independent reading should follow on from the whole group focus to allow students to use the learning intention and success criteria to guide their reading.
During independent reading time, the teacher's role includes:
reading with a focus group
reading with a student
conferencing with a student
taking a running record
Independent reading is a practise all students can successfully undertake, as it can be differentiated for every student. Texts selected are usually at an easy level.
Reciprocal Teaching in Reading
Using reciprocal teaching
Reciprocal Teaching may be used with fluent readers to develop their comprehension skills during a small group reading session. Teachers may choose to use components of reciprocal teaching as a variation of a guided reading session. This practice requires students to read more independently than in a structured guided reading session, as it involves a lower level of teacher involvement and a higher level of student independence. Reciprocal teaching is a supportive teaching practice because it:
supports students to develop comprehension strategies in a supportive context
makes explicit what readers do – predict, clarify, question and summarise
develops students’ content knowledge and topic vocabulary
fosters meaningful dialogue among students including extended talk about texts
helps students to develop skills in locating, recording, and organising information in preparation for writing
Guided Reading
In this provided video, the teacher uses the practice of guided reading to support a small group of students to read independently. It demonstrates the before reading discussion, which prepares the small group for the reading, and secondly, students individually read the text with teacher support.
Literacy Learning Progressions
Literacy Learning Progressions
The Literacy Learning Progressions provide detail of how students become increasingly adept in particular aspects of Literacy. Content Descriptions and Achievement Standards continue to be the focus for planning, programming, teaching, learning and assessment in relation to the Victorian Curriculum F–10.
Taken from: https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/foundation-10/crosscurriculumresources/Pages/Literacy.aspx
To access the progressions and more information click the link above.
Writing Process
Writing Process
Literacy in Foundation to Level 2 Classrooms
YouTube video, 1 hour 30 minutes
This video compliments the Literacy Teaching Toolkit and covers effective teaching of writing with particular emphasis on Interactive Writing.
To watch the video click on the image or access the links and resources at: https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/webinar-series.
Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness
Literacy in Foundation to Level 2 Classrooms
YouTube video, 1 hour 30 minutes
This video compliments the Literacy Teaching Toolkit and covers effective teaching of:
Phonological Awareness
Phonemic Awareness
Vocabulary
To watch the video click on the image or access the links and resources at: https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/webinar-series.
Interactive Writing
Interactive Writing
Literacy in Foundation to Level 2 Classrooms
YouTube video, 1 hour 30 minutes
This video compliments the Literacy Teaching Toolkit and covers effective teaching of writing with particular emphasis on Interactive Writing.
To watch the video click on the image or access the links and resources at: https://fuse.education.vic.gov.au/pages/webinar-series.
English Online Interview
English Online Interview
Analysing EOI data to improve literacy outcomes
This Online Learning Program is for teachers using English Online Interview (EOI), Diagnostic Assessment Tools in English (DATE) and other Department resources to effectively identify literacy learning difficulties in young students. The collected data is interpreted to identify, measure and address skills and capability gaps.
Page updated
Report abuse