Developing Literacy in the Primary Classroom

'Primary literacy involves many different learning processes, which can make it challenging to teach, particularly in diverse classroom environments.
 
Combining an examination of theory and research with practical case studies and real examples of teaching practice, this book shows trainee and early career teachers how to engage and motivate children to develop a range of primary English skills.
 
Chapters incorporate broader aspects of primary teaching such as active learning, self-regulation and assessment, and activities and discussion points explore how to apply important principles to your own teaching. 
 
Drawing from international research and aware of policy developments in different countries, the book covers key topics on primary teacher education courses, including:

• The foundations of reading, writing and oracy skills

• Planning, assessment and classroom organisation

• Using new technologies and social media as tools for learning
• Engaging with the literacy needs of diverse learners.' 

Sage Publications Ltd 

Publication date late June 2014

'Gary Woolley’s new book gives us a comprehensive overview of what we mean by both literacy and literacies in our modern world. It is thoroughly researched and offers student and practising teachers, and those working in Higher Education, a balanced and informed overview of the theory behind our present teaching practices.'

Howard Cotton

Lecturer in Language and Literacy, Plymouth University, UK

'Highly recommended. The author has left no stone unturned in this extremely comprehensive exploration of how best to develop students’ literacy skills. Beginning teachers, and those with experience, will find much here to influence their positive thinking and their classroom practices. A truly 21^st century perspective.'

Peter Westwood

Education Consultant and Author, Australia

'Developing Literacy in the Primary Classroom is a comprehensive overview of the critical topics all teachers need to understand and apply to be effective literacy educators.  Teachers need to know and understand what literacy is, how students learn and advance in their literacy skills, and how to direct, structure, monitor and adapt their literacy instructions and practices, as required for different purposes. This book is strongly focussed on developing teachers’ pedagogical knowledge across the different elements of literacy and across the changing demands of students’ literacy enhancement across the school years.'

Professor Ian Hay

Past Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Tasmania

10 Principles for Assisting Reading 1.Motivation

This blog is the first in a series of blogs focusing on 10 important principles for assisting children with reading.

This series is intended to help a range of people. My initial concern was to guide parents when they are helping their children. One of the most common concerns that parents all over the world face is how to assist their children and remain on friendly terms. Many research articles over the last 20 years or so have consistently reported that reading sessions often end in anger, frustration, and an unwillingness to continue the reading episodes. This is not surprising since most parents have not had any formal training in regard to using the best techniques to promote reading engagement, motivation, and effective skill development.

This series has been designed to follow on from a video interview that I did with the New South Wales Education Department for National Literacy and Numeracy Week (see the link: http://www.nlnw.nsw.edu.au/events10.htm).

The first principle is that all children have three basic needs that need to be met in any learning situation:

1. relationship, 
2. competency, and 
3. autonomy

When assisting children with reading it is important to build a relationship of trust, openness and sharing. This means that the tutor and the tutee should be seen as a collaborative partnership. The reader should be given opportunities to take risks in a supportive atmosphere. One of the most common problems when assisting children is when the focus is placed on reading for accuracy rather than for meaning and enjoyment. This can stifle their risk-taking ability and slow their reading down so that they decode letter-by-letter and word-by-word. This narrow focus will overload their limited short-term memory capacity by focusing on smaller and less meaningful chunks of information. The main thing to keep in mind is that reading should focus on meaning. The reading sessions should be enjoyable and provide an opportunity for parents and their children to share their life experiences around interesting literacy activities. 

One of the most common factors leading to reading failure at school is the number of books that are available in the home. Children become competent, in part, because there are lots of books and lots of choices. When parents provide books, particularly books that are linked to children's interests, it fosters their love for literacy. Children gain knowledge and reading skills when parents interact with them around rich book reading sessions. This is enhanced when parents share their own experiences as they relate to story books and information texts. Many of skills that they develop are often picked up incidentally. 

The third motivational need is that of autonomy. Everyone desires to become independent and self-reliant. This is something that can be encouraged in the way that help is given. However, it must be noted that  help can be given in such a way that dependency is fostered rather than independence. I will be giving some advice on ways to promote independence in reading in the blogs that follow this one.

Your comments and ideas will be very much appreciated.