Literacy

Staff

Ms Kanel – SEN Teacher / Lead Teacher for Literacy

Ms Sheheryar – TA for Language and Literacy

This has been developed to complement the language and literacy demands of the wider curriculum and students are assessed using the same assessment criteria and banding as used by the English Department.

We also use the National Group Reading Tests and Diagnostic Spelling Tests in Cycle 1 and Cycle 4 to monitor student progress in reading and spelling. Where we have concerns about attainment on the NGRT reading tests, students are also assessed using the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension tests in Cycle 3 and Cycle 6, which provides a more detailed assessment of strengths and difficulties in reading. Students who are identified as having SEN are also assessed, in Cycle 2 and Cycle 5, using Lucid LASS 11-15, a computerised, multifunctional assessment for pupils of ALL abilities, which looks at skills in:

• Visual Memory
• Auditory-verbal memory
• Phonic reading skills
• Phonological processing ability
• Single word reading
• Sentence Reading
• Spelling
• Reasoning

Emerging research suggests that experts are not born but develop skills by engaging in deliberate practice over a long period of time (Ericsson, Charness, Feltovich and Hoffman, 2006). Results suggest that deliberate practice is required for a learner to advance from novice to expert in any skill (Glaser, 1996; Kellogg, 2006; Wagner and Stanovich, 1996).

Norlington Literacy Strategy is founded on the principle of "the more you practice, the better you get" with students being given structured opportunities to deliberately practice language and literacy skills in all their lessons.

In addition to a cross-curricular experience of literacy, all students in Year 7 and 8 will spend thirty minutes in each Literacy lesson working on one of two programmes:


Touch Typing

Accelerated Reader is an evidence-based, specialised Literacy programme which targets reading and spelling skills. It is a personalised programme which works on the skills that the individual student needs to develop at their ability level. It also provides information which helps us to provide more targeted support programmes to improve specific skills.

Touch typing has been introduced as there is evidence to suggest that being able to touch type improves spelling skills as the spelling becomes associated with a series of finger movements.

There is a daily optional lunchtime and after school Accelerated Reader club where students can complete additional work on the programme. They can also download the programme from the link above to complete it at home. There are also compulsory Accelerated Reader clubs for students who have got 'stuck' on specific skills or who are falling behind on the required number of hours. Parents are contacted to advise them if their son needs to attend this.

Year 7 students will spend 30 minutes of every lesson working on reading, writing, speaking and listening skills in small groups on a programme which has been written with the needs of Norlington boys in mind. The programmes have been written by Ms Boyce and Ms Kanel who, between them, have over ten years' experience of teaching English at Norlington.

For students experiencing particular difficulties with Literacy, we also offer targeted KS3 support sessions in small groups or individually. Parents are contacted if their son is expected to attend an after school group.

 

Cycle

Curriculum Coverage

1. Technicalities

Focus on developing the use of punctuation for effect in our writing.

Learning how to edit our writing.

2. Newspaper Articles

Analysing a variety of articles with different genres, purposes and audiences.

Writing, creatively, for the purpose of engaging our audience.

3. Stories with Morals

Developing our reading comprehension skills:

  • Exploring implicit and explicit language

  • Inferring

  • Eliciting

  • Character analysis

4. Creative Writing - Characterization

Looking at fairy tales from an alternative character’s perspective (The wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty) and exploring their point of view.

Using an already existing fairy tale to create a new perspective for the villain to rewrite the story with a twist.

Writing creatively in role with the purpose to engage and entertain..

5. Writing with our Senses.

Developing descriptive and emotive writing through appealing to the 5 senses.

Through the participation of activities that involve using our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and hands ( such as eating a lemon, looking at a photograph, and listening with our eyes closed) to elicit descriptive words, we will develop a descriptive and emotive vocabulary bank which we will apply to descriptive pieces of writing inspired from the experiences.

6. Language Rich

Theme: Poverty poems.

Focus on developing our own poverty poems through use of poetic devices and advanced vocabulary.