English

English @ Pt England

confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners

NZ English Curriculum

English is the study, use, and enjoyment of the English language and its literature, communicated orally, visually, and in writing, for a range of purposes and audiences and in a variety of text forms. Learning English encompasses learning the language, learning through the language, and learning about the language.

By the End of Year 8 our students will have acquired the foundational skills at Level 3 and then are learning to apply those skills across all learning areas at Level 4 of the NZC to take them on to be skilled and sophisticated speakers and listeners, writers and readers, presenters and viewers.

Literacy@PES

Successful learning and teaching in Literacy has meant that we have continued to sharpen the focus around the following

• Language Acquisition, development, transfer and sustaining

• Learning design with particular focus on progressions, differentiation and formative assessment

Critical to our success is the continual goal to grow capable and connected effective users of language and in order to do this we must grow 'Language in Abundance'. We have a large number of children who come from homes where their first language is one other than English.

We continue to strive to have classrooms that are dialogic and have received PD and input from Jannie van Hees around growing Language in Abundance.

Teachers use - Talking Frames, Talk Moves and are deliberately gifting and recycling language in a planned and well scaffolded sequence so that our children can grow their English Language capabilities.

Regular opportunities to discuss, hear and use language are provided and this has been enhanced via the affordances of technologies in the classrooms.

Reading

In the Junior School the students have a reading hour where they are taught in small groups. They have rotations to ensure that all students have an equal learning time. As the students become more independent readers the group sizes increase. Follow up activities are designed to support the learning intentions of each micro lesson. Along with weekly reflections around specific learning goals, groups are evaluated every 5 weeks when the class reading graphs are filled in and reflected upon in Team Meetings. Priority Learners are monitored at these meetings.

Ability groups or micro groups are taught throughout the school up to Year 8 where there is an emphasis placed on exposure to an increasingly wide of ideas, genre, critical thinking and a much more critical look at content themes and aspects. Along with this there is an increasing exposure to multi modal text types and digital artefacts.

Reading to our tamariki and exposing them to a variety of literature continues to be a critical component of the classroom programme.

The reading prompts illustrated in the presentation below are used in the instructional reading lessons in the Junior school and have proved to be very successful strategies to teach reading to Pt England students. The students are initially taught in groups of three enabling all students to learn in a structured and focussed way at the correct level. The consistency of the language used enables the students to attend to the learning, not having to worry about interpreting the ever changing instructions.

Reading Level/Age Targets

PES Reading Learning Progressions

PES Writing Learning Progressions

Literacy Learning Progressions

Magenta Level 1

We are Learning to

• Use directionality such as left to right, top and bottom return sweep.

• Use crisp 1-1 pointing on words.

• read some basic words off the butterfly cards.

• Use the pictures for meaning.

• Know that books tell a story.

• Remember language patterns in texts.

Red Level 3

We are Learning to:

• Recognise language patterns and changes in language patterns.

• Know basic Concepts of Print such as - cover page, first, last, next, top, bottom,

• letters and words, start end.

• Read all the yellow card words.

• Use the pictures for meaning.

• Learn new vocabulary.

• Read with expression.

• Retell main ideas in the story

Yellow

We are learning to:

• Read with our eyes.

• Use initial letter sounds to attempt words.

• Make and break known words.

• Confirm and discount known and unknown words.

• Use phrasing and expression.

• Become aware of endings.

• Know some initial blends fr pr sh th pl ch wh.

• Understand about rhyming words.

• Retell the main parts of the story.

• Use meaning, structure and visual information to attempt unknown words.

Blue

The children are learning to:

• Use initial letter sound to decipher/fix errors

• Confirm / discount known and unknown words using meaning, structure and visual information.

• Make and break known words to form new words - beginnings and endings

• Talk about the story meaningfully.

• Learn about short vowel sounds.

• Read blends and endings.

• Read with expression to enhance meaning.

Green to Orange

We are learning to:

• Use a range of strategies to attempt unknown words i.e. meaning, visual, structure

• Read with phrasing and fluency using punctuation.

• Read more text.

• Get meaning from text without relying on pictures.

• Retell the main parts of the story including more detail.

• Understand new vocabulary from the text.

• Answer comprehension questions about the text.

• Read blends.

• Know double vowels oo ee

Level 17 to Level 21

We are learning to:

• Read larger blocks of text.

• Respond to and share feelings about stories.

• Retell the main events in own words.

• Agree or disagree with statements from the text.

• Agree or disagree with statements from the text then find proof. (8yr RA)

• Answer a range of comprehension questions about the text including inferential questions.

• Continue to develop new vocabulary from the text.

• Use syllabification and word knowledge to decode more complex words.

• Show an increasing recognition of letter clusters blends and vowel diagraphs - ea etc

• Read independently for enjoyment.

• Read for information.

• Practice reading a range of texts/genre at each level.

• Read fluently and silently.

• Use text to predict word meanings.

Writing

Prior to 2018 Writing was the major focus at Pt England with many staff participating in Professional Development delivered by Dr Jannie Van Hees. The emphasis was given to increasing the vocabulary and oral language of the students and applying that knowledge to their writing. Particular focus was given to making writing more interesting and well crafted.

All areas of the school have a Literacy Block and the students are taught as a whole class or groups according to their learning needs. There is a variance throughout the school teams to satisfy the needs of the different age groups and physical organisation of the classes. All students from year 4 and up use chromebooks to access, create and share their written work. However the group teaching and the writing process is a consistent factor throughout the whole school.

The following are the general expectations and common features that structure the Writing hour of the Literacy Programme at Pt England School.

1 hour of Written Language during the Literacy block of the day.

Literacy Cycle.

Oral Language/vocabulary development/gifting of vocab.

Motivation or context provided

Clear instructions and success criteria (when appropriate).

(thinking before during and at the end of the learning)

Established routines for activities.

Children should know what they are doing and what to do when they are finished.

Class site supports organisation for learning and follow up.

Scaffold or framework for writing is provided.

Whole class/Group teaching (ability/needs based grouping as appropriate)

Teaching focus specific to group needs.

Teaching point and activity coming from 5 week plan and weekly plan.

Opportunity during week for personal/diary writing - blog.

Consistent language used by the teacher.

Sharing of work and reflection.

Feedback/feedforward given verbal/written comments either on blog or doc

The Writing Process Components of the Literacy Cycle

Planning for writing - Graphic Organiser/Scaffold

Draft Writing

Proof Reading

Self Editing

Peer Conferencing

Teacher Editing

Feedback

Conference

Publishing

Sharing

Reflection

( cyclical but not always in that order)

Junior School Writing Hour( generic plan)

ABC -

Oral language - gifted vocabulary and word groups

Class sentence modelled or co-constructed about a topical idea recording sounds in words using butterfly cards for letters and basic words at the start of each lesson. 20 minutes

5 minutes draw/brainstorm/plan (class or individual)

Goal: Independent/collaborative - Write in sentences to record ideas or a message using the gifted language and ideas. Read to each other/class/record on ipad - blog

Group work: Write a sentence and develop it according to group learning outcomes and success criteria.

Sentence to come from the class writing topic.

Emergent writers:

Think of an idea

Record sounds in words

Learn basic words

Use butterfly cards

Read work

Reflect on Learning Outcomes

Practising writers:

Re-work independent writing

Develop ideas, vocab.,

grammar.

Spelling

Punctuation

Read passages

Reflect on learning outcome

Read work aloud. ( or a section of it)

Sharing time. Reflect using the success criteria. 10 minutes.

Everyone needs to share/publish their work every week.

Illustrate on kidpix or elearning task.

Record for an authentic audience - blog.

Oral Language

May include the following elements - teaching is planned and explicit but incidental when the opportunity arises.

1.Frameworks by Teacher then child response. Children expected and modelled to give appropriate and elaborate responses.

2. News in morning - as appropriate. Opportunity for sharing.

3. Discussions after PENN - reflection, context is provided and relevant.

4. Reflections in afternoon. Expressions of feelings and emotions - an area we have limited vocab.

5. Talking frames provided to promote discussion.

6. Consistent, planned and purposeful discussions and connecting of Schoolwide Values - developing focus for the year as well as the week.

Shared Expectations that our tamariki ...

• Use peoples names when addressing them.

• Speak in sentences using a clear voice. (As developmentally appropriate - teacher may revoice to model correct structure)

• Make eye contact with the person you are speaking to.

• Actively listen

• Speak politely and respectfully.

• Choose vocabulary and manner of speaking appropriate to the audience.