What are the big picture literacy demands?

From here you’ll be working towards completing Assessment 3. In the first part, we look at the big picture demands. By the end, you should have an idea about:

• Which literacy strands are relevant for your teaching.
• Which progressions from these strands are relevant.

Not everything is going to be relevant so we need to make sure of a couple of things. These are that you:

1. Understand what each literacy progression is in plain English.
2. Can eliminate any progressions that are not relevant for your situation.
3. Identify which literacy progressions are important for your teaching and programme and know why.

There are a couple of tasks coming up which will pull all this together.

Understanding what the literacy progressions are

If you’ve already had a look at the strand charts, you’ll have noticed that some of the progressions pop up again in different strands. For example, each of the four literacy strands has a vocabulary progression.

Below is list of all of the literacy progressions and our “plain English” explanations of what they mean. Have a read through and then see if you can complete the task that follows.

Vocabulary

• Knowing the meanings of words, how to use them and how they relate to each other

Language & Text Features

• Using and understanding language, texts and parts of texts including speech

Comprehension

• Understanding the messages, making connections with what you know and inferring meanings

Listening Critically

• Understanding who is speaking and why. Aware of speakers’ purposes and points of view.

Interactive Listening & Speaking

• Taking part in conversations and discussions. This includes taking turns, interrupting in a way that is appropriate and checking meanings

Using Strategies to Communicate

• Getting ideas and information across to others in a way that is effective

Decoding

• Knowing how to say written words out loud

Reading critically

• Understanding who wrote something, why, and for whom.

Purpose & Audience

• Having reasons and goals for writing. Knowing who you are writing for.

Spelling

• Writing words in a way that is correct and consistent.

Planning & Composing

• Deciding what to write about. Then recording ideas.

Revising & Editing

• Making changes and corrections to writing. The aim is that the writing is clear, meets your purpose and engages with the audience.