Overview

When a student's literacy and numeracy proficiency is significantly below the expected level, it is not enough to achieve one year of growth for each year of tuition. Schools must intervene to change the trajectory of learning for these students and design and implement approaches, which achieve this outcome. The Accelerated Learning intervention relies on a withdrawal approach. Students are withdrawn in small groups with targeted support by a trained educator in reading and/or numeracy. The trained educators work with each group of students three times a week catering to their individual needs. Ongoing testing and monitoring of students reading and numeracy skills allows educators to identify students requiring intervention support. Students requiring additional support from the Accelerated Learning program will be withdrawn from one of the following subjects: Humanities, Science or Physical Education.

Accelerated Reading

In Accelerated Reading we use the Fountas & Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention System (LLI), which "is an intensive, small-group, supplementary literacy intervention for students who find reading and writing difficult. The goal of LLI is to lift the literacy achievement of students who are not achieving grade-level expectations in reading". The LLI systems are designed to:

• Advance the literacy learning of students not meeting grade-level expectations in reading

• Deepen and expand comprehension with close reading

• Elevate the expertise of teachers

• Increase reading volume by engaging students in large amounts of successful daily reading

• Increase student engagement with books that build knowledge

• Intervene with small groups of struggling readers to maximize growth

• Meet the needs of struggling readers

• Monitor student progress.

https://www.fountasandpinnell.com/lli/

Accelerated reading groups range in size from 1-6 students and are grouped based on the students F&P level. Students receive three sessions per week where they are able to build on their fluency, accuracy, vocabulary and comprehension strategies.

Accelerated Numeracy

In Accelerated Numeracy students participate in intensive, small group intervention targeted at their level of need to build basic numeracy skills required in the topics they are learning in Maths classes. The intervention aims to address difficulties that students experience when learning mathematics. Educators support students to familiarise with specific vocabulary relevant to mathematics they will hear during mathematical lessons. A range of hands-on resources are used in these small group sessions to model and assist students to work out and grasp key mathematical skills required to increase their mathematical development levels. The targeted small group sessions allow students to revisit their classroom mathematics as well as gain a solid understanding in key mathematical concepts.

Accelerated Numeracy groups range in size from 4-7 students and run for three sessions per week. Each unit of work begins with a pre-test to identify what skills students are confident with and the skills they require further support with. Students work on their foundation mathematical skills to support them to better engage with their at level work in Mathematics classes.

CAFE

CAFÉ is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expanding Vocabulary.

The highly structured CAFÉ teaching approach maximises students’ understanding of each of the four components and supports the consistent teaching of Reading. CAFÉ has been widely used in primary schools to improve literacy outcomes. The wide range of student literacy levels upon entry to secondary school makes CAFÉ a viable intervention option for the junior years of secondary schooling.

CAFE classes are made up of no more than 15 students and run for three classes per week. Every CAFE class begins with 10 minutes of independent reading of a good fit book followed by 5 minutes of journal writing. The teacher then explicitly teaches a strategy from the CAFE menu, modelling how to use the strategy using a mentor text that is accessible for all students.

MYLNS

The Middle Years Literacy and Numeracy Support (MYLNS) initiative provides funding to government secondary schools to help improve outcomes for students who are at risk of finishing school without the literacy or numeracy skills they need for future work, education and training. Direct student support in Literacy is provided by a MYLNS Improvement Teacher. The improvement teacher has the flexibility to support all prioritised students through:

• In class co-teaching such as teaching a segment of the lesson, providing in-class support

• Small group work

• Individual student support

This style of support will be dependent on the needs of each individual student. At year 8, MYLNS students participate in the above programs. At year 10, MYLNS students are grouped together in a class of no more than 10 students for their Literacy and Numeracy. In these classes they receive point of need teaching that supports them to meet the outcomes of their Foundation Literacy and Numeracy units.