Pre-requisites

ES610 Primary English
ES611 Primary Mathematics

Co-requisites

None.

Learning Outcomes

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

• Analyse and synthesise literacy requirements across the whole primary curriculum, teaching and learning

• Analyse and understand how socio-cultural circumstances, school policies and procedures, educational theory and other educational contexts can facilitate and/or impede students’ literacy learning and explore ways for advancing literacy learning and teaching in the classroom to ensure all students are able to maximise their learning.

• Apply knowledge and understanding of different forms of assessment, and interpret student assessment data to evaluate students’ literacy proficiencies and learning needs, and plan differentiated teaching practices and learning goals that provide achievable challenges for students of varying abilities and characteristics, including students with additional needs, EAL/D students and gifted and talented students.

• Use a range of strategies for reporting student progress to students and parents/carers and strategies for engaging parents/carers in children’s literacy learning.

• Demonstrate knowledge, understanding and application of research into how students learn literacy, appropriate pedagogical practices to support literacy learning, a range of teaching strategies and resources, including exposure to a rich variety of children’s literature and appropriate ICT to expand learning of diverse students, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and EAD/L students.

• Identify the literacy features of genres which can be used to teach literacy across disciplines (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing and creating), and critically review and select conventional, multi-modal and culturally diverse texts suitable for primary students, applying Christian worldview thinking and knowledge and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students’ histories, culture and languages.

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 inclusive learning programs 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

• Language and literacy development from birth to adulthood and learning theories
• Understanding the language dimension of everyday life, why literacy is “across the curriculum”, the range of knowledge, skills and elements of multi-literacy competency (vocabulary, spelling, grammar, comprehension), and The Victorian Curriculum F-10 and the Australian Curriculum: English, literacy and the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities
• Data analysis: assessing literacy and diagnosing needs using school-based data (formative and summative, portfolio samples, rubrics, NAPLAN), differentiating literacy learning goals, modifying practice, and reporting literacy progress and achievement to students and parents
• Factors that impact on students’ literacy learning - socio-cultural circumstances, school policies and procedures, educational theory and other educational contexts
• Revise models of reading: The Four Resources model for reading and viewing (Freebody and Luke: Text decoder, participant, user and analyst), Cueing Systems (Clay: semantic, grammatical, graphophonic and visual/pictorial systems)
• Examining the impact on children’s literacy development when they are exposed to a rich variety of children’s literature and critically selecting conventional, contemporary and classic, multi-modal and culturally diverse texts suitable for primary school children
• Picture and chapter books: visual analysis and structure, genres, making links to community, language and culture (multicultural texts: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and Asian cultures, multi-literacies, using picture books to integrate literacy learning across disciplines, Australian Literature, visual literacy)
• Identifying literacy features of genres that can be used to teach literacy across disciplines (reading, writing, speaking, listening, viewing and creating)
• Strategies for advancing literacy learning and teaching, pedagogy, teaching strategies and resources (e.g. (Scootle resources in ACARA) and incorporating the Teaching Learning Cycle and HITS (High Impact Teaching Strategies) - John Hattie & Robert Marzano’s evidence-based strategies - into literacy teaching practices
• Literacy in the multicultural classroom: strategies to support and engage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in culturally appropriate ways in English and literacy, and EAL/D students in English acquisition and literacy learning (culturally inclusive curriculum, collaborative approaches with bilingual families and agencies and contemporary theories of EAL/D language learning)
• Designing effective interventions to support literacy learning for diverse learners
• Strategies for supporting parents/carers’ engagement in children’s literacy learning

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Unit offerings

Face to face: Semester 2, 2025 and Semester 2, 2026 (Every Year, Semester 2)

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.