Week 5 Term 1: English Department: Structured Literacy Part 3 (Feb 24 - Feb 28)

In my earlier posts, I have focused on the Structured Literacy approach that the English Department are undertaking in Term 1. I have outline what our focus is and the strategies that we have learnt through our catch up to code sessions with Dr Jannie and the Science and Social Science Departments. Please see my reflection here:

Alby's Blog Post Entry - 17/02/25

Alby's Blog Post Entry - 10/02/25

Dr Jannie leading our 3rd session for Structured Literacy

This week we had our third session and we went through two structured literacy tasks that we could do with our junior classes. In this post I am going to reflect on the tasks  (3 tasks) and my take away from it. The focus for the third session was WORD MEANINGS and CONTEXT USE. Both WORD MEANINGS and CONTEXT USE are a powerhouse for vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. 

WORD MEANING

The three learning outcomes when focusing on WORD MEANINGS are: 

• Say ready (can I say it?)
• Read ready (Can I read it?)
• Write ready (Can I write it?)

Vocabulary fluency is the foundation to comprehension. If we cannot pronounce the word, we cannot say them and we cannot find out what they mean. We grow vocabulary when we expose students to more print. The task for WORD MEANING helps to expose students to words via print and enables them to say it, read it and write it. 

TASK 1: WORD MEANING 1

In this task, the teacher will provide a list of words (ideally sample words from the primary text studied in class). The students will go through the list of words and they will see if they can: 

• Identify the syllables in the word
• Learn how to pronounce the word
• Explain what the word means in their own words (before looking it up in the dictionary)

Structured Literacy PLD

In our PLD, we gave the task a go and we looked at three words (Heterogeneous, Brigade and Aspiration). We learnt that our role as teachers in this task is that we have to scaffold the discussion when doing feedback with the students making sure that they know: 

What is a Clear meaning for the word 

What is a Precise meaning for the word

What is a Concise meaning for the word

My take away from TASK 1 was: 

• It is a great opportunity for students to look at the words in different ways - writing/reading/speaking
• It is a great opportunity for students and teachers to look at contexts that we understand the word in our own knowledge. When you’re working on your own then partnering up - you are involved in the process
• Not looking the word up first helps the students to understand the word meaning better.
• Here is a word, see what you know and see if you can explain it to yourself and your partner.
• We as teachers can affirm student’s findings and then ask them to look at dictionary meanings to confirm their findings.

TASK 2: WORD MEANING 2

Task 3

• In this task the students will work in groups of 4 or 5. 
• They are given an envelope with a short text and x4 words (cut out from the text). The objective is to read the text, learn the word (pronunciation) assigned to them and teach others in the group. 
• They will read the text then give out the assigned words after the reading. 
• Once they get their assigned word they need to - Identify the syllable/pronunciation stress and explanation
• What are the four words, can you now remember the explanation?
• Everyone shares the word (teaching the syllable), how to pronounce it and then explain what they think it is. 

Group work for Task 2

My take away from TASK 2 was:

• We will need to model this task to the students so that they can understand the process and their role in it.
• The text we provide needs to be texts that we have already spent time unpacking with the students so that they understand the context of the words that they are coming across during the reading.
• Why is this uptake potential? There is a lot of sharing, everyone is responsible for their word

TASK 3: WORD MEANING 3 + CONTEXT USE

Task 2

Word meanings and explanations

• Read the words in the list - pronouncing each correctly
• Read the meanings below (list of words)
• Match each meaning with the word it explains
• Use each word in a sample sentence or context
• Students will read out the definition first then match the definition with a word from the word list. They can work on this in groups or in pairs then feedback to the class. 

My take away from TASK 3 was:

• If students identify it is much more powerful
• It is important that we help students with Step 1: Work out the meaning together - they are much more involved in the process and they are not just looking for definitions in the dictionary. It is involved and interactive. 
• It is important that we help students with Step 2: Record and recall to consolidate uptake and learning
• It is important that we help students with Step 3: Identify and learn word families