Reading Across Secondary Subjects

Day One

ReadingAcrossSecondarySubjects

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY is a way for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to pay their respects to the traditional owners of the land to show the importance of land to Aboriginal people and the special cultural and spiritual relationship they have with the land and each other

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Morning Session

• Sydney region Data for Reading• The challenge of moving the middle to the top• Analysis of school data for Reading • Teaching components and purposes of subject-

specific texts• Enduring understandings• Literacy Continuum

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

The Challenge

How can secondary teachers enable students performing in average bands to:

• develop new skills • achieve at higher levels • and show growth ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

School DataItem Analysis:

Student Response Analysis for Reading:

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Teaching components and purposes of subject-specific texts

An example: Plummeting penguin numbers

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What do students need to know?Deep knowledge, deep understanding…

• Skim for the gist, What is this text?• Scan for details, eg title, headings,

labels, numbers, brackets, technical vocabulary

• Understand visual representations • Navigating tables, charts and maps• Interpret tables, graphs and symbols• Apply reasoning, What ideas and

relationships are represented ?

What is required of students in:

Connecting information

Connecting language

Inferring

Identifying purpose / main idea / point of view ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

In Plummeting penguin numbers

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What clues does the title give the reader?

What prior knowledge is assumed?

What assumptions does the text composer make about the reader?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What deep knowledge and deep understanding of texts does a student require for on-going learning?

What are the ‘enduring understandings’?

How would teachers best prepare students to apply their knowledge to unfamiliar texts?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

• Reading texts• Comprehension• Vocabulary knowledge

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Morning Session

• Sydney region Data for Reading• The challenge of moving the middle to the top• Analysis of school data for Reading • Teaching components and purposes of subject-

specific texts• Enduring understandings• Literacy Continuum

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

On the discussion forum, post a reply to the question:

In this session, what is something new to you, something the session has confirmed for you, and something you have a question about ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Morning Tea

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Mid-Morning Session

• What adolescents need to know about reading texts

• Texts, text navigation, text processing strategies

• Making explicit the purpose for reading

• Reading and navigating according to purpose

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What do adolescents need to know about READING texts ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Types of texts Classifications according to the particular purposes texts are designed to achieve. These purposes influence the characteristic features the texts employ. In general, texts can be classified as belonging to one of three types (imaginative, informative or persuasive), although it is acknowledged that these distinctions are neither static nor watertight and particular texts can belong to more than one category. • Imaginative texts – texts that represent ideas, feelings and mental images in words or visual images. An imaginative text might use metaphor to translate ideas and feelings into a medium that can be communicated effectively to an audience. Imaginative texts also make new connections between established ideas or widely recognised experiences in order to create new ideas and images. Imaginative texts are characterised by originality, freshness and insight. These texts include novels, traditional tales, poetry, stories, plays, fiction for young adults and children, including picture books and multimodal texts such as film. • Informative texts – texts whose primary purpose is to provide information through explanation, description, argument, analysis, ordering and presentation of evidence and procedures. These texts include reports, explanations and descriptions of natural phenomena, recounts of events, instructions and directions, rules and laws, news bulletins and articles, websites and text analyses. They include texts which are valued for their informative content, as a store of knowledge and for their value as part of everyday life. • Persuasive texts – texts whose primary purpose is to put forward a point of view and persuade a reader, viewer or listener. They form a significant part of modern communication in both print and digital environments. Persuasive texts seek to convince the responder of the strength of an argument or point of view through information, judicious use of evidence, construction of argument, critical analysis and the use of rhetorical, figurative and emotive language. They include student essays, debates, arguments, discussions, polemics, advertising, propaganda, influential essays and articles. (Glossary, English K-10 Draft Syllabus Version 2)

Most Important Point

Consider the classifications of texts.

In light of the texts students engage with in your subject, choose a most important point to share.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Text navigation The way readers move through text. Readers generally read novels in a linear fashion from the beginning to the end; readers of nonfiction books often use the contents page and index and move between chapters according to the information sought. Readers often read digital texts more flexibly, according to interest and purpose, using hyperlinks to move between pages and digital objects such as videos or animations, making quick judgements about the relevance of material. (Glossary, English K-10 Draft Syllabus Version 2)

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Think about the text navigation demands of your subject area

• What types of texts are students required to read and interpret?

• What are some typical diagrams used to record information?

• How is data usually presented?• What ‘conventions’ are characteristic of

how the content is conveyed?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

As a ‘scientist’ how do students: read and understand text understand technical terms and abstract concepts interpret diagrams extract meaning from tables and graphs decipher data

Consider Science

Explanatory diagramWhat does a student need to know how to do?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

• Skim for the gist, What does it represent?

• Scan for details, eg start, labels, numbers, brackets, technical vocabulary

• Understand cross-sections, outlines• Interpret symbols, eg arrows, borders• Apply reasoning, What relationships are

shown or assumed?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

In terms of:

•Connecting information•Connecting language•Inferring and•Main idea

what challenges are there for students in this text ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Why are students reading this particular text ?

Purpose

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

In what subject(s) might this text be used ?

What might be the purpose(s) of reading this text ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What do students’ eyes have to do to navigate the whole page ?

What do students have to do to begin reading strategically ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Text processing strategies Strategies for reading a text. These involve drawing on contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge in systematic ways to work out what a text says. They include predicting, recognising words and working out unknown words, monitoring the reading, identifying and correcting errors, reading on and rereading. (Glossary, English K-10 Draft Syllabus Version 2)

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

PREDICTING: What will this text be about ? What questions might it answer ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

PURPOSES FOR READING:

• To learn about the relationship between diagrams and text

• To compile a list of topic and technical terms

• To learn about the ‘terror’ blackberries cause environmentally

• To compile a list of five facts about blackberries

• To learn how blackberries spread

• To devise explicit strategies for engaging students with this text so they know the damage blackberries cause and how they spread

• To locate sentences that show cause and effect

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

You have 5 minutes to post on the discussion forum how the purpose for which you were reading influenced the way you read the text.Try and describe the text processing strategies you used.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

PRESENTATIONS

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Mid-Morning Session

• What adolescents need to know about reading texts

• Texts, text navigation, text processing strategies

• Making explicit the purpose for reading

• Reading and navigating according to purpose

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

On the discussion forum, post a 3-2-1 reply :From the mid-morning session, what are

3 aspects you can incorporate in your classroom

2 aspects you would share with others in your school

1 aspect you would like to learn more about

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

LUNCH

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Afternoon Session

• Reading and navigating according to purpose• Preparing texts for classroom use• Questions, Language Conventions, Tracking,

Connecting Language• Explicit teaching of subject texts• Meeting the challenge• Where to next ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Layout• What are the conventions and layout

features of particular texts ?

• As text DECODERS, USERS, PARTICIPANTS and ANALYSTS, students need to be given explicit instruction on aspects of layout

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

An example• Using one of the past stimulus booklets,

find a text that would be typical of a text used in your subject.

• Scan the text in terms of ‘Some Points on Layout’ and determine what explicit instruction you would give students before they engage with the texts.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Questions

What are the questions students need to ask about the text ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Language ConventionsWhat are the particular language conventions of subject-specific texts ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

TrackingHow to track main ideas, purposes and points-of-view within texts and text parts ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Connecting language

Connecting information and ideas through language, including visual and non-visual language

What to do when the teacher is not there to prompt

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Independence

Given what the data has revealed as challenges for

even the top performing students in our region:

Connecting informationConnecting languageInferringIdentifying purpose / main idea / point of view

what explicit teaching should students be given in relation to

the texts you have brought with you today ?

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

School texts

1. Teach the components of social texts

2. Emphasise the purpose of texts in order to develop understanding

3. Discuss typical features (a range of print, social and electronic)

4. Talk about common language features, design features, conventions, cues and codes.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Teachers need to:

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Meeting the challenge:

Ensuring students’ skills continue to develop requires:

• Close investigation and discussion of texts• In-depth inquiry into meaning rather than just

answering questions• Constructing personal and purposeful meanings• Teaching portable strategies students can use

when engaging with texts on their own.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

What can teachers do ?

• Textbooks and teachers favour Q & A as the main strategy to have students respond to texts.

• Why is this a problem ?• Three-level guides: questions from surface to

deep level; convert these to statements that students investigate for themselves (requires deeper reading of the text)

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Where to next ?• Day Two: Expectations

– Trial your ideas from today– Keep a portfolio of annotated texts and:

• Record observations about how students engaged with texts as a result of your ideas and strategies

• Share any student work samples that demonstrate the success of your strategies or ideas.

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Where to next ?

• Day Two: Overview– Super 6 Comprehension Strategies– Drilling deeper with aspects of Day One– Connecting visual and non-visual language– Broadening the range of social and electronic

texts used in secondary subjects

Sydney RegionStudents are at the centre of what we do. The most effective strategy for ensuring student learning success is through quality teaching and quality teachers.

Evaluation

• Please post a reply to the discussion on the afternoon session page, ‘How will you most immediately use and apply your learning from today ?’