At Stevensville Primary School, we use the whole-part-whole model to teach literacy. We are committed to implementing a 2-hour literacy block targeting the curriculum areas of Reading and Viewing, Writing, and Speaking and Listening.
Literacy Lesson Structure
Explicit Teaching Mini-Lesson – Teachers explicitly teach a particular literacy concept, introducing the students to essential technical vocabulary, strategies and understandings. Students are provided with learning intentions and success criteria to help them understand the purpose of their learning.
Independent or small group learning activities – Students are given opportunities to practise introduced skills and strategies and extend their knowledge of concepts through activities directed at their learning level. They have the opportunity to synergise through working in small groups and sharing understandings, working independently on purposeful tasks or working with a teacher to deepen their understanding of the concept introduced.
Student Reflection – Students reflect on their learning using the success criteria. Reflections can be presented orally where they share their new learning with the class or independently write a reflection in their learning journals.
Reading
The students engage in daily independent reading, where they are encouraged to read for meaning and pleasure.
Teaching groups focus on various comprehension strategies and skills to deepen the understandings of students.
Writing
The students engage in daily writing, learning to write for different purposes using appropriate structures and features. They produce procedures, letters, information reports, recounts, expositions, narratives, poems and explanations. Students also learn the correct use of punctuation, a range of vocabulary, sentence structures, and editing and proofreading.
Students also have opportunities to use their Writer’s Notebook, where they collect “seeds” to provide a stimulus for their personal writing around topics of interest. They also have a choice in the type of writing they do.