Pre-requisites

ES6100 Primary English: Foundation

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, the student will be able to:

• Demonstrate and apply broad and coherent knowledge of upper primary literacy curriculum requirements (cross curricular provisions), planning lessons and sequences in upper primary subjects that incorporates explicit modelling and scaffolding.

• Critically analyse and review the theories of literacy

• Demonstrate an understanding and application of assessment and feedback and reporting of literacy proficiencies and approaches across broader curriculum (cross curricular provisions) to provide for ATSI, EAL/D, G&T, and diverse requirements.

• Analysis of effective teaching strategies (eg. HITS, Explicit Instruction, scaffolding, modelling and chunking) and resourcing (ICT, etc) specific to upper primary and the teaching of literacy skills across the curriculum.

• Integrate rich Children’s Literature as a starting point for broader curriculum and using literature as a base for the teaching of grammar.

• Demonstrate the capacity to embed planning for a Christian perspective, ATSI, other cultural perspectives/contexts and diverse requirements.

Unit Description

In this unit, you will engage with 21st Century cross-curricula literacy learning needs of students through: an analysis of the Victorian Curriculum F-10 and the Language, Literature and Literacy strands of the Australian Curriculum (English); growing understandings about how literacy and language develop; policy documents and school processes; and through engagement with contemporary literacy learning theories and pedagogies required for improving literacy teaching and learning. The unit also covers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages that need to be considered in the context of literacy teaching and learning, as well as Christian perspectives on literacy development and learning. You will also appreciate and develop ways to integrate the state and national curriculum’s general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.

Through the unit pre-service teachers will examine a range of strategies for assessing children’s literacy proficiencies. The unit covers the knowledge, skills and understanding required to analyse assessment data, determine children’s proficiencies and learning needs, and plan differentiated learning goals. You will develop the skills to design a multi-tiered system of support within the classroom where all learners can acquire literacy skills and practices needed for successful learning and for participating effectively in society, including students with learning difficulties or EAL/D, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and gifted and talented students, especially those labelled ‘at-risk’. The unit covers appropriate pedagogies, teaching strategies and resources, including ICT, to support literacy learning which you will apply to plan responses to students’ numeracy needs. Further to teachers’ practices, you will recognise the role of parents/carers in progressing students’ literacy and will develop strategies to support their engagement.

Over the course of this unit, you will create an annotated resource list of high quality, culturally sensitive literacy texts representing a variety of genres (big books, picture books and multimedia texts) to be used in the classroom to develop students’ literacy learning across the curriculum in the Primary years.

Through engagement with this subject, you will improve your standards of personal literacy in the context of tertiary studies and primary school teaching.

Topics

1. Literacy learning development theories 7+ years old, including the misconceptions of brain research eg. neuromyths such as learning styles in relation to literacy.
2. State and Australian Curriculum and capabilities – Literacy requirements (recap F-2, focus on years 3-6)
3. Pedagogical approaches, e.g. explicit instruction, modelling (through the use of worked examples) and scaffolding for teaching writing in years 3-6. Sentence level writing development and text level writing.
4. Research the impact on literacy learning (ATSI, EAL/D, etc) in the context of a multicultural classroom.
5. Research and learning theories including the impact that policy, approaches and linguistic factors have on literacy learning
   Example Reading: Hempenstall K (2016). Read about it: Scientific evidence for effective teaching of reading (Research report 11). The Centre for Independent Studies. https://www.cis.org.au/ wp-content/uploads/2016/03/rr11.pdf
6. Reading (3-6): Comprehension teaching, assessment and planning cross curricular lessons. Reading critically - the 4 resources model
7. Multimodal literacy
8. Reading and analysing Literacy data in other subjects
9. Feedback to students and parents and engaging parents in learning (developing a culture of literacy learning across subjects)
10. Children’s literature (Fiction and non-fiction) as a basis of cross-curricular planning and a range of texts

Embedded throughout:
* Christian/ biblical framework
* Catering for diverse needs i.e. differentiation and Tiered learning strategies.

Learning Experiences

Topic 3: Practicing pedagogical approaches. In pairs, students will practice using ‘worked examples’ for demonstrating how to write a specific text.

Discussion Topic: “There is evidence that the progressive removal of scaffolding is important as students become more proficient.” Using evidence from 1 scholarly article, discuss the above statement.

Assessment and Indicative Load

Assessment types include Assignment, Annotated Bibliography, and Major Essay. Indicative study load is 140 hours.

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Unit offerings

Please note

The Unit Offerings listed above are a guide only and the timetable for any year is the final authority. The College may vary offerings based on demand, regulatory requirements, continual improvement processes or other conditions.

This unit may be available in different modes of delivery i.e. online and face-to-face as listed above. The unit content will not differ between these modes of delivery. There will possibly be a difference in the schedule and/or the prescribed assessment tasks, however both will cover and assess the same content.