READING REVIEW GLOSSARY -very helpful list for you all.
ANALYTIC TALK: Talking with young children in a way that encourages and supports them to retell, describe and explain details of experiences and stories and justify their ideas (From f rom Reading Support ACU National, Dr Janelle Young, Assoc Prof Maureen Walsh and Dr Lorraine McDonald.).
See the UK National Strategies website Understanding and using types of interactive talk at http://nationalstrategies.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/21096?uc=force_uj
1. BALANCED APPROACH TO TEACHING OF READING : A term used to signify teaching a range of reading dimensions for children to draw on in order to read. Four dimensions currently are regarded as integral to a balanced approach:
i) focus on the meaning of the text and understanding its vocabulary;
ii) focus on decoding the words of the text through recognizing letter-sound relationships;
iii) focus on knowledge of different types of texts and the language used;
iv) focus on the values, attitudes and beliefs the text presents about the world it presents.
These dimensions have been called frameworks, reading practices and roles of the reader (Report Ref: p.28 and throughout).
An outstanding website is In Teachers Hands Effective Literacy Practices in the Early Years of Teaching which includes many videos and of teachers working with children at http://inteachershands.education.ecu.edu.au/
2. BALANCED APPROACH TO TEACHING OF READING : Suggested by the research as ‘best’ practice for organizing reading in the classroom and typically includes a form of shared, guided reading and independent reading where the teacher explicitly scaffolds the students’ attempts at reading challenging words and texts. The role of quality talk in the classroom around texts and using quality texts of all kinds are essential components here (Report Ref: p.52). See MyRead http://www.myread.org/what.htm
3.BALANCED APPROACH TO TEACHING OF READING : All elements of classroom activity including a good balance in instructional grouping; in selection and use of text types; in promoting reading cognition and positive effect; in adapting instruction to competent and struggling readers; and in integrating other areas of the curriculum (Report Ref: p.29).
BALANCED LITERACY APPROACH OR PROGRAM: Applies the same principles as a Balanced Approach to Teaching of Reading (above in Glossary) to the teaching of writing and oracy.
BOOK-RELATED PLAY: Selecting books which encourage active participation and playful follow-up activities such as using concrete materials, manipulative objects, hands-on and creative activities and games for developing vocabulary and grammatical structures; encouraging young children to ‘dictate’ and ‘dramatise’ their shared storybook reading activities. These kinds of activities have been shown to be developmentally appropriate literacy practices (Report Ref: p. 12, 14-15).
CODEBREAKER: As a code-breaker a reader is concerned with decoding the visual information of texts, that is, the codes and conventions of written, spoken, visual texts. These texts may be paper-based, electronic or ‘live’. Readers can understand the relationship between spoken sounds and written symbols, the visual images and printed text, the grammar of texts, the structural conventions of texts, whether, spoken, written, visual, electronic or ‘live’ (Report Ref: p.18, 29).
Codebreaker is one of the four roles of the reader (also called four reading practices, see Glossary below for both) suggested by Luke & Freebody (1999). A number of texts and websites elaborate on codebreaker as a reading strategy: MyRead http://www.myread.org/what.htm
Teaching Literacy Reading A K-6 Framework at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/material/reading/index.htm
A comprehensive set of web links is available from the NSW Department of Education at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/resources/proreading/index.htm
CODING PRACTICE: Another term for Codebreaker (see Glossary above) and one of the four reading practices (See Four Resources Model of Reading in Glossary below). The concept of ‘practice’ highlights that reading and literacy is something that is ‘practised’ or ‘done’ in our daily lives. One of the practices of literacy is to decode when reading and encode when writing texts (Report Ref: p.18, 29).
COMPREHENSION: Reading comprehension is the act of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning from text, including print, illustrations, layout and design (Report Ref: p.21.) The crucial aspect of comprehension is understanding beyond the literal or recall level of knowledge (Report Ref: p.9, 11, 18, 21and throughout).
COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES: Approaches for teaching children how to extract and construct meaning from a range of texts. Research suggests proficient readers use a number of comprehension strategies to achieve understanding. These include predicting content, questioning content, constructing mental images or visualization, clarifying, summarizing and reflecting on content and have been called ‘reciprocal’ reading (Report Ref: p.22). Other frameworks are Freebody and Luke’s Four Resources Model of Reading (see Glossary below) used nationally and internationally. Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Categories and de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats (see Glossary below) are alternative ways of teaching comprehension.
COMPREHENSION TEACHING: There is a wealth of texts and websites available that elaborate on teaching comprehension. Two very recent Australian texts that guide teachers to teach comprehension is Strategies for reading success (Holliday, 2009) and Where do start? (Wild, 2009) both available from the Primary English Teaching Association at http://www.elit.edu.au/mediaLibrary/documents/Catalogues/Final_Book_Catalogue09.pdf
Other very useful websites are:
http://www.myread.org/how.htm
http://arb.nzcer.org.nz/comprehension/strategies.php
http://www.ciera.org/library/presos/2001/2001MRACIERA/nduke/01cmndk.pdf
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4461
http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/teacher_resources/literacy_pages/comprehension_strategies.htm
CRITICAL LITERACY: See Critical Reading (Glossary below)
CRITICAL PRACTICE: One of the four reading ‘practices’. The concept of ‘practice’ highlights that reading and literacy is something that is ‘practised’ or ‘done’ in our daily lives. One of the practices of literacy is to identify and consider values and viewpoints when reading and writing texts. See Critical Reading and Four Resources Model of Reading (Glossary below) (Report Ref: p.24, 109 and throughout).
CRITICAL READING: Critical reading (and critical literacy) involves probing how print, media and digital texts are constructed and the values, attitudes and beliefs present in the text. This probing develops from the understanding that these elements are decisions made by the authors, illustrators and designers in order to represent a particular worldview. See the Four Resources Model of Reading which refers to such readers as taking up a Text Analyst role (see Glossary below) (Report Ref: p.24 and throughout).
CRITICAL READING – TEACHING STRATEGIES: Children learn to look at the author’s purpose and viewpoint, recognize gaps in the text and what different viewpoints are possible. In early years classrooms, when teachers teach critical reading they deliberately plan to introduce a range of images and texts that reflect diverse cultures, language and family structures (Report Ref: p.25). Critical reading is regarded as comprehension of the highest order.
A number of texts and Australian websites elaborate on critical reading strategies and how to support children in taking up a text analyst role, for example:
MyRead http://www.myread.org/what.htm
Teaching Literacy Reading A K-6 Framework at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/material/reading/index.htm
A comprehensive set of web links from NSW Curriculum Support is available at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/resources/proreading/index.htm
DECODING: See Codebreaker (Glossary above)
DIALOGIC READING: An interactive shared picture book reading practice designed to enhance young children’s language and literacy skills. During the shared reading practice, the adult and the child switch roles so that the child learns to become the storyteller with the assistance of the adult who functions as an active listener and questioner (Report Ref: p.21). Related to Shared Reading (see Glossary below).
A website for this teaching strategy is at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/ecrr/workshopsab/workshopmaterials/handoutsecrr/talkerhandouts.pdf
DIGITAL LITERACY: (Also see Multimodality, Glossary below). Digital literacy requires the knowledge and skills to read and write with new technologies. This literacy involves the integration of electronic, aural, visual and print-based modes to construct or design a text.
DIGITAL READING: (see also Digital Literacy, Glossary above) The ability to read and use digital or electronic texts such as hypertext features on CD-ROM storybooks; able to read on screen and use websites and search engines; reading to play interactive online games; able to read and design graphics, imagery and interactive media (Report Ref: p.26 and throughout).
DIGITAL TEXTS: see DIGITAL READING (Glossary above)
DIMENSIONS OF LITERATE PRACTICE: Unsworth (2002) outlines three ‘Dimensions of literate practice’ which include
i) a focus on coding and producing – ‘recognition’ literacy;
ii) a focus on understanding and producing – ‘reproduction’ literacy; and
iii) a focus on understanding the social and cultural values inherent in texts – ‘reflection’ literacy (Report Ref: p.18).
ELECTRONIC TEXTS: see DIGITAL READING (Glossary above)
EMERGENT LITERACY: The term ‘emergent literacy’, of which reading is a core element, was introduced by Marie Clay (1966) and names the reading and writing behaviors that precede and develop into conventional literacy. Emergent literacy refers to the earliest phases of literacy development, the period between birth and the time when children see and interact with print (such as books, magazines, grocery lists) in everyday situations (home, in preschool, and at daycare) well before they start school. The term emergent literacy signals a belief that, in a literate society, young children, even 1- and 2-year-olds, are in the process of becoming literate. Clay’s research demonstrated the different ways children encountered and engaged with reading and writing print in the home and community before starting school. Emergent literacy has become an established concept (Report Ref: p.10 and throughout).
An online workshop on emergent literacy is available at http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/profdev/summerbookclubs/preK1/
EMERGENT LITERACY SKILLS: Phonological awareness (see Glossary below), alphabetic principles (knowing the alphabet), comprehension, concepts about print and vocabulary development are emergent literacy skills (Report Ref: p.11, 46).
EXPLORATORY TALK: Classroom talk that implements collaborative meaning-making and the oral exploration of ideas. Talk-promoting tasks such as play-based activities and integration of digital resources moves talk from low level questions, designed to funnel children’s responses towards a required answer, to a genuine dialogue between equal participants. This kind of talk may help bridge any perceived ‘gap’ between the language of school and the language of home (also see Analytic Talk, in Glossary above) (Report Ref: p.34, p.133).
FOUR RESOURCES MODEL OF READING or FOUR ROLES OF THE READER: Alan Luke and Peter Freebody (1999) name four ‘reading ‘practices’ or ‘roles’ that readers must utilize to be effective and successful. Readers are
i) ‘codebreakers’ when they decode print and multimodal texts – coding practice;
ii) text ‘participants’ when they understand and respond to various levels of meaning in texts – semantic practice;
iii) text ‘users’ when they recognise how texts are constructed, for what social purposes and know how to respond to and use the texts – pragmatic practice;
iv) text ‘analysts’ when they are able to identify the values and attitudes presented in the text and not to take a text at ‘face value’ – critical practice.
This model appears to have a high level of teacher support nationally and internationally. The model asserts there is not ‘one’ correct approach for the teaching of reading. Rather, children need a range of reading practices they can employ for different texts and purposes (Report Ref: p.18, 29, 109 and throughout).
A number of texts and Australian websites elaborate on the four resources model of reading:
Further notes on the four resources model with Luke & Freebody http://www.readingonline.org/research/lukefreebody.html
MyRead http://www.myread.org/what.htm
Teaching Literacy Reading A K-6 Framework at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/material/reading/index.htm
A comprehensive set of web links is available from the NSW Department of Education at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/resources/proreading/index.htm
Healy, A. & Honan, E. (Eds) (2004). Text Next New resources for literacy learning. Newtown: PETA.
Holliday, M. (2009). Strategies for Reading Success. Newtown: PETA.
FOUR ROLES OF THE READER or FOUR RESOURCES MODEL OF READING: Readers take up different ‘roles’ when reading, depending on their purpose and on the text. These ‘roles’ have been named ‘codebreaker’, ‘text participant’, ‘text user’ and ‘text analyst’ (see Glossary above and below). Also see Four Resources Model of Reading (Glossary above) (Report Ref: p.28-29 and throughout).
GENRE: Language in specific situations in a particular culture. In the NSW English K-6 Syllabus the term text types is used to refer to genre. Young students need to recognise the purposes and genre types of a range of factual and literary texts they are reading and aspects of the different elements and linguistic structures that construct the texts (Report Ref: p.24, 112, 119).
GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE: The form of language that is used to construct the text. Different text types use different forms of language, for example, narratives have a different grammatical structure to information reports, both in the staging of the texts and in the language choices that need to be made to fulfill each social purpose (Report Ref: p.11, 14).
GRAPHEME: A grapheme is a unit (a letter or letters) of a writing system that represents a single sound that has one phonemic (sound) correspondent. For example, the phoneme [f] can be represented in English by the graphemes /f/, /ph/ and /gh/ (Report Ref: p.101, 102). (See Glossary below for Phoneme).
GRAPHOPHONICS or PHONICS: The correspondences between a letter or letters (Graphemes, see Glossary above) and a sound. While the traditional term for this correspondence is ‘phonics’, current literature and the NSW English K-6 Syllabus use the term graphophonics to foreground the duality of the relationship between letters and sounds when reading and writing. Being able to recognise graphophonic cues is essential to learning to read and research suggests should be taught in the context of whole texts, rather than in isolation. Graphophonic relationships (also called letter-sound relationships) are identified as graphological and phonological sources of information in the NSW English K-6 Syllabus.
Further elaboration is available at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/assets/pdf/focus_readpt1.pdf
The NSW Syllabus’s terms developed from Ken Goodman’s ‘cueing systems’. Goodman named graphophonics as one of the three ‘cueing systems’ that readers use when reading. The other cueing systems are semantic cues and syntactic cues. (Report Ref: 17, 19 and throughout).
GUIDED READING: Typically, in a guided reading session the teacher organises students into small ability groups, with books to be read at an instructional level with the teacher. The teacher explicitly scaffolds the students’ attempts at reading challenging words and texts. The teacher helps students learn to use reading strategies such as context clues, letter and sound knowledge, and syntax or word structure, as they read a text or book that is unfamiliar to them. The goal of guided reading is for students to use these strategies independently on their way to becoming fluent, skilled readers. Although there will always be variations, the essential steps for a Guided Reading lesson are:
Before reading: Set the purpose for reading, introduce vocabulary, make predictions, talk about the strategies good readers use.
During reading: Guide students as they read, provide wait time, give prompts or clues as needed by individual students, such as “Try that again. Does that make sense? Look at how the word begins.”
After reading: Strengthen comprehension skills and provide praise for strategies used by students during the reading.
Guided Reading is often confused with ‘round robin’ reading where students take turns reading parts of a text aloud. Research has shown that Guided Reading is superior to round-robin reading in reducing young children’s oral reading errors, improving their reading fluency, and improving their reading comprehension.
Guided reading is suggested by the research as ‘best’ practice for organising reading in the classroom (Report Ref: p.31and throughout). There are a number of excellent texts and websites that give detailed information about how to conduct Guided Reading, such as
http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/guidedread.htm
http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/strats/guided/guided.html
A selection of videos of guided reading in practice can be viewed at
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=safari&rls=en&q=guided+reading&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF8&ei=EpU0SrKkO5qy6QPb7_isCw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#
HYPERTEXT: Hypertext is a way of constructing documents that reference and link to other documents online. A block of text can be tagged as a hypertext link pointing to another document. When viewed with a hypertext browser, the link can be activated to view the other document. Thus learning to read text shifts from learning a linear, top-to-bottom process to one of learning to navigate an increasingly complex search structure (Report Ref: p.26).
INTEGRATED APPROACH TO READING & READING INTERVENTION: The teaching of reading through development of oral language, vocabulary, grammar, reading fluency, comprehension and the literacies of new technologies are recommended by the Australian Government’s National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, Teaching Reading (Rowe, 2005). ‘Best practice’ requires teaching explicit phonological knowledge with an equal emphasis on teaching aspects of comprehension, such as vocabulary recognition, drawing on other language modes and multimodal literacies to support this learning.
See the DEEWR website at http://www.anevenstart.deewr.gov.au/resources/reading_resources/modules.htm
Intervention strategies are also shown to be more effective when integrated, targeting such skills as phonological awareness and phonemic knowledge, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, writing ability, and even numeracy skills (Report Ref: p.20, 23, 28 and throughout).
INTERACTIVITY: See MULTIMODALITY and MULTIPLE LITERACIES (Glossary below).
JOINT CONSTRUCTION: A well-known strategy for teaching writing in which children and their teacher jointly write a text. The notion of guidance through interaction in the context of shared experience is fundamental to the strategy. It is part of a three-stage teaching cycle which combines modelling with scaffolding and leads to children independently constructing a written text (Report Ref: p.28).
KWL STRATEGY: Know-Want to know-what I have Learned (Ogle, 1986) is an instructional reading strategy that is used to guide students through a text. Students begin by brainstorming everything they Know about a topic. This information is recorded in the K column of a K-W-L chart. Students then generate a list of questions about what they Want to Know about the topic. These questions are listed in the W column of the chart. During or after reading, students answer the questions that are in the W column. This new information that they have Learned is recorded in the L column of the K-W-L chart (Report Ref: p.23).
See also http://www.nea.org/tools/18368.htm
LANGUAGE MODE: Listening, speaking, reading, writing are the traditional four language modes (Report Ref: p.9, 10, 21).
LETTER-SOUND RELATIONSHIPS: See Graphophonic (Glossary above).
LITERACY: This term emerged in the 1970s as a concept intended to capture the complexities of the speaking-listening-reading-writing relationship. With the exponential growth of the digital world ‘literacy’ has expanded to include multiple ‘literacies’ or ‘modalities’– where students must ‘read’ and ‘write’ texts which use other sign systems such as visual and aural modes, as well as print. As the concept of ‘literacy’ has expanded, so too has the concept of ‘reading’ and its associated pedagogy (Report Ref: p.4 and throughout). Two excellent Australian websites are:
Literacy teaching tips and hints http://www.elit.edu.au/page__1920.aspx
Literacy online at http://10ss.qtp.nsw.edu.au/ELO/index.html
Literacy professional learning resource – Teaching strategies
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/studentlearning/teachingresources/english/literacy/strategies/vels12.htm
LITERATURE: Books written for children. While there is a huge range of literary texts available it is important that quality children’s literature is selected for classroom use. (Report Ref: p.16 and throughout). Four recommended websites which list and discuss outstanding quality texts, in a range of literary genres, topics and for different age ranges are:
The Children’s Book Council of Australia http://cbca.org.au/awards.htm
The Children’s Book Council (USA) http://www.cbcbooks.org/ and http://www.cbcbooks.org/readinglists/
Database of award-wining children’s literature http://www.dawcl.com/
Carol Hurst’s children’s literature site http://www.carolhurst.com/
METALANGUAGE: Language for talking about language. Typical metalanguage instruction in early years literacy classrooms would include discussions of such terms as ‘character’ and ‘setting’, ‘caption’ and ‘diagram’, ‘action verbs, present tense & adjectives’ (Report Ref: p.24, 102, 133).
High metalanguage instruction has high levels of talk about talk and writing, about how written and spoken texts work, about specific vocabulary, about how sentences work or do not work grammatically, about meaning structures and text structures, about which values are evident in texts. Teachers tend to foreground talking about particular words, sentences, text features, rather than setting activities and tasks.
Low metalanguage instruction has little explicit talk about talk and writing, about how written and spoken texts work, about their features, characteristics, patterns and structures. There is an emphasis on simply doing text-based activities, without any explicit talking about texts.
MODELLED READING: Modelled reading is part of a Shared Reading session (see Glossary below) and involves the teacher reading (or viewing) a text to the students and articulating how he or she is constructing and maintaining meaning. The teacher demonstrates skilled reading (or viewing) behaviours in the particular text type being used. At appropriate points during the reading, the teacher thinks aloud about the way he or she is reading the text, ‘getting meaning’ strategies such as reading back, checking for meaning out loud, and so forth. When the teacher ‘thinks aloud’ students can begin to see and hear what an effective reader does when blocked by an unknown word, when unsure of the meaning of a sentence, or when confused about the overall meaning of the text (Report Ref: p.27, 114).
Modelled reading is one of the four ‘core’ reading strategies in a balanced reading program used in conjunction with shared reading, small-group guided reading and independent reading.
Two excellent Australian websites are: Early Literacy online http://10ss.qtp.nsw.edu.au/ELO/stage1/module5/effective_a.html Primary English Teaching Association e:lit Modelled Reading http://www.elit.edu.au/Teaching_hints_and_tips/Teaching_Tips/page__1558.aspx
MULTILITERACIES: Also see Multiple Literacies and Multimodality (Glossary below) and Literacy (Glossary above). Multiliteracies is a term that describes new and different forms of literacy which have evolved because of the multiple and changing ways people communicate in this century (Report Ref: p.10).
MULTIMODALITY: Multimodality describes the combination of images, text and audio modes that can be utilized to construct or design a ‘text’. When compared to the traditional single-modes of text construction which could use only audio or visual/print modes, being literate with multimodal texts extends and enhances what is possible for young children to create (Report Ref: p.10).
MULTIPLE LITERACIES: Also see Digital Literacy (Glossary above). The nature and definition of literacy is a changing construct, as much of the current literature indicates in its reference to ‘multiple literacies’. Digital literacy, where children integrate aural, visual and print-based modes, is core to the concept of multiple literacies. The acquisition of multiple forms of literacy is now regarded widely as part of effective literacy instruction for young learners (Report Ref. p. 17).
OPERATIONAL LITERACY: One of three categories of literacy (Durrant & Green, 2000)
i) ‘operational’ – in essence, being able to read and write;
ii) ‘cultural’ – understanding texts in relation to social and cultural contexts; and
iii) ‘critical’ – understanding how texts always represent particular interpretations and classifications (Report Ref: p.18).
PEDAGOGY: The ‘art’ and ‘science’ of teaching, where teaching is seen as a profession which requires both knowledge and craft to enact successfully (Report Ref: p.9, 10, 17 and throughout).
PHONEME: A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a language that serves to distinguish between meanings of words. For example, the word mat has 3 phonemes /m/ /a/ /t/. By changing one phoneme we change the word and its meaning. For example, /f/ /a/ /t/ fat, /m/ /e/ /t/ met, /m/ /a/ /p/ map. Australian English has 42 phonemes to be matched with 26 alphabet letters (Report Ref: p.19 and throughout).
PHONEMIC AWARENESS: The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that words are made up of sounds that can be assembled in different ways to make different words. Once a child has phonemic awareness, he or she is aware that sounds are like building blocks that can be used to build all the different words. Children build phonemic awareness by practicing nursery rhymes and playing sound and word games. Phonemic awareness includes the ability to
i) blend sounds and to recognise blends (What word am I trying to say: mmm-aaa-ttt?)
ii) recognise initial, final and middle sounds (What is the first sound in mat? What is the last sound in mat? What is the middle sound?
iii) segment sounds in words (What are all the sounds you hear in mat?)
iv) segment words into onset and rime patterns (mat; m = onset; at = rime) (Report Ref: p.20, 43 and throughout).
PHONICS: Also see Graphophonics (Glossary above). The term ‘Phonics’ is the traditional term for correspondences between a letter or letters (Graphemes, see Glossary above) and a sound. Current literature and the NSW Syllabus English K-6 use the term graphophonics to foreground the duality of the relationship between letters and sounds when reading and writing. Being able to recognise phonic cues is essential to learning to read and research suggests should be taught in relation to whole texts, rather than in isolation. The NSW English K-6 Syllabus identifies a range of phonological sources of information (Report Ref: p.17, 19 and throughout).
Further elaboration is available at http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/policies/literacy/assets/pdf/focus_readpt1.pdf
PHONOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE: Phonological knowledge (or phonological awareness) is understanding different ways that oral language can be divided into smaller components and manipulated. It is demonstrated by awareness of sounds at three levels of sound structure: syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes (Report Ref: p.19 and throughout). The least (i) to most complex (v) levels are outlined below:
i) identify and produce rhymes
ii) segment separate words in sentences
iii) segment and blend syllables
iv) onset-rime blends and segmenting (mat; m = onset; at = rime)
v) blend and segment individual phonemes (Report Ref: p.21, 23 and throughout).
PRAGMATIC PRACTICE: Another term for ‘Text User’ role (see Glossary below) and one of the four reading practices (See Four Resources Model of Reading in Glossary above). The concept of ‘practice’ highlights that reading and literacy is something that is ‘practised’ or ‘done’ in our daily lives. One of the practices of literacy is to understand how texts are constructed and how to use them in daily life (Report Ref: p.109).
RECIPROCAL READING or RECIPROCAL TEACHING: (see Comprehension Strategies, Glossary above). This strategy takes the form of a dialogue between the teacher and students as they use and develop the processes of predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising while reading small sections of the text. The teacher models the four processes prior to commencing the strategy. Factual texts work well with Reciprocal Teaching although other texts may be used (Report Ref: p.22).
There are a number of websites which explain this strategy, including http://www.elit.edu.au/Teaching_resources/Teaching_Tips/page__1557.aspx
SEMANTIC PRACTICE: Another term for ‘Text Participant’ role (see Glossary below) and one of the four reading practices (See Four Resources Model of Reading in Glossary above). The concept of ‘practice’ highlights that reading and literacy is something that is ‘practised’ or ‘done’ in our daily lives. One of the practices of literacy is to understand the different levels of meaning when reading texts and how to construct such meanings when writing texts (Report Ref: p.23, 106, 109).
SHARED READING: Shared reading is related to, but different from, Modelled Reading (see Glossary, above). Shared Reading is an interactive reading experience that occurs when students join in or share the reading of a big book or other enlarged text while guided and supported by a teacher or other experienced reader. Students observe an expert reading the text with fluency and expression. The text must be large enough for all the students to see clearly, so they can share in the reading of the text. It is through Shared Reading that the reading process and reading strategies that readers use are demonstrated. In Shared Reading, children participate in reading, learn important concepts about how print works, see a model of how proficient readers read and begin to perceive themselves as readers. Shared reading is one of the four ‘core’ reading strategies in a balanced reading program used in conjunction with modelled reading, small-group guided reading and independent reading. (Report Ref: p.31 and throughout).
There is a number of texts and websites that explain Shared Reading, for example:
Shared reading http://www.prel.org/toolkit/pdf/teach/Shared%20Reading.pdf
Reading to kids http://www.readingtokids.org/ReadingClubs/TipSharedReading.php
A video of shared reading in practice can be viewed at e-Workshop Online Teaching Resource
http://www.eworkshop.on.ca/edu/core.cfm?p=modView.cfm&navID=modView&L=1&modID=21&c=3&CFID=4830221&CFTOKEN=69779855&jsessionid=f0309900f9602f1bb9251b5415405e451064
SIX HATS STRATEGY: Six Thinking Hats is a strategy devised by Edward de Bono in 1985 which requires students (and teachers), to extend their way of thinking about a topic by wearing a range of different ’thinking‘ hats (Report Ref: p.23).
The thinking strategies are:
White hat thinking focuses on the information available and needed.
Black hat thinking examines the difficulties and problems associated with a topic.
Yellow hat thinking focuses on benefits and values.
Red hat thinking looks at a topic from the point of view of emotions, feelings and hunches.
Green hat thinking requires imaginative, creative and lateral thinking about a topic.
Blue hat thinking focuses on reflection, metacognition (thinking about the thinking that is required), and the need to manage the thinking process
A number of texts & websites elaborate on these thinking strategies, for example, http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/sixhats.htm
SOCIAL PRACTICE: The contemporary view is that literacy is seen as ‘social practice’ – people ‘do’ reading, writing and viewing in a social world (Report Ref: p.10, 12).
TAXONOMY OF COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS: A hierarchy or ‘taxonomy’ of questions (and/or focused tasks) which identifies six learning ‘categories’ developed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956. The taxonomy probes learning at different levels:
knowledge (recalling information),
comprehension (interpreting and inferencing),
application (applying to a new situation),
analysis (separating information into component parts),
synthesis (combining information into new understanding),
evaluation (making a judgment and justifying decision) (Report Ref: p.23).
A number of texts & websites elaborate on the taxonomy. For example:
Aussie Schoolhouse – Teachers on the Web at http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/Dalton.htm
TEXT ANALYST: One of the four roles of the reader. Readers analyse texts for the values and viewpoints they contain and recognise the values they compose in their writing. Also called ‘critical practice’ (Glossary, below). See Four Resources Model of Reading, Critical Reading and Critical Reading – Teaching Strategies (in Glossary above) (Report Ref: p.29, 133).
TEXT PARTICIPANT: One of the four roles of the reader. Readers can comprehend (and participate with) various levels of meaning in a text. Also called ‘semantic practice’ (Glossary, below). See Four Resources Model of Reading (in Glossary above) (Report Ref: p.29, 133).
TEXT TYPES: The range of texts that children in primary schools in NSW are taught to write. The NSW English K-6 Syllabus identifies the specific texts, their structures and relevant grammatical features. Text types can also refer to the range of texts – literary, factual, popular, electronic – that children may be asked to read (Report Ref: p.29 and throughout).
TEXT USER: One of the four roles of the reader. Readers understand the social purposes, structures and appropriate grammar of different text types and can respond to, compose to, and use texts in their daily lives. Also called ‘pragmatic practice’ (Glossary, above). See Four Resources Model of Reading, (in Glossary above) (Report Ref: p.29, 133).
VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE: A child’s bank of words and their meanings.
Vocabulary can include
i) ‘sight vocabulary’ – the words a reader can read without using any decoding strategies
ii) ‘spoken vocabulary’ — the collection of words that a person uses appropriately in everyday speech.
iii) ‘expressive vocabulary’ — words that can be confidently used in conversation — and
iv) ‘receptive vocabulary’ — words that may be understood in the listening or reading context, but not necessarily used confidently.
Building a student’s receptive vocabulary is particularly important for confident reading and comprehension (Report Ref: p.11, 31 and throughout).
See the website DEEWR Approaches to Teaching Reading – Vocabulary Knowledge http://www.anevenstart.deewr.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/A19BCAC0-E5F3-4431-BF8F-8FE18A53EA68/20927/reading_voc_knowledge.pdf
WHOLE LANGUAGE: A term coined in the 1970s to describe the interdependence of the four language modes of talking, listening, reading and writing and the important contribution the written construction of meaning made to learning to read. Thus learning to read went hand-in-hand with learning to write, and the oral modes were seen to underpin this learning.
See website of the USA National Council of Teachers of English Whole Language Umbrella http://www.ncte.org/wlu (Report Ref: p.9, 17, 21).
