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Since
September 1998, all primary schools in England have been expected
to teach the literacy hour as laid down in the National Literacy
Strategy in the Framework for Teaching. As a response to the National Literacy
Project, many LEAs in England initiated their own 'literacy hour'
anticipating the White Paper proposal in 1997 to extend the National
Literacy Project to all schools in England. The literacy
hour is now part of the Primary National Strategy.
The 18,500 English state primary schools were required, from September
1998, to teach reading and writing in a highly structured manner
as laid down by the strategy which insists that phonics comes first.
The National Literacy Strategy is an unprecedented intervention
in classroom teaching methods - representing the first England-wide
policy on the teaching of reading.
The National Literacy Strategy describes term by term how reading
and writing should be taught. It lays down that pupils should be
taught to:
- Discriminate between the separate sounds in words;
- Read words by sounding out and blending their separate parts;
- Write words by combining the spelling patterns of their sounds.
- Only when children are reasonably fluent readers should the
emphasis shift to advanced reading.
The policy requires primary teachers to teach a daily English lesson
in which pupils are taught for the first half of the lesson as a whole
class, reading together, extending their vocabulary, looking at the
phonetics of words and being taught grammar, punctuation and spelling.
The lesson should begin with clear objectives. The teacher led part
of the hour should be interactive with the teacher modelling what
the pupils have to do and the pupils increasingly joining in the activity
so that they have the confidence to work on their own in the second
half of the lesson. For the last half of the lesson they will work
in groups or individually with the teacher focussing on one group.
The lesson ends with feedback from the children on what they have
been doing in relation to the objectives of the lesson.
First section:(15 minutes)
Make the objectives of the lesson clear
- Whole class:
Modelling reading using an enlarged text or modelling writing by
scribing with the class.
Second section:(15 minutes)
-Whole class:
Focused word or sentence work.
Third section (about 20 minutes):
- Group or individual work:
Reading, writing or word and sentence work while the teacher works
with one or more ability group on guided text work.
Final section: (about 10 minutes)
- Whole class plenary session:
Reviewing the learning that has taken place related to the learning
objectives of the lesson - the pupils, not the teacher, explain
what they have learnt.
Why a plenary session? The logic behind the structure of
the literacy hour with its plenary session is this: educational
research and brain research shows that people learn things better
if they know initially what are the objectives of their learning
and are provided with frequent opportunities to review what they
have learnt. Explaining to others (a key ingredient of the plenary
session) is one of the most effective methods of reviewing since
if you can explain what it is you have been doing itdevelops your
understanding of what you are doing and means you are much more
likely to retain the information. | 80px.gif)
