Literacy Focus: Reading Readability Statistics Readability statistics are indicators, under the form of scores, that measure how easily a student can read and understand a text.

Literacy Focus: Reading 1. Insert/ or copy at least a paragraph of the text into a word document.

Literacy Focus: Reading 3. Go to Proofing. 4. Click ‘Show Readabilty Statistics’ 2. Go to File. Click on Options.

Literacy Focus: Reading 7. Go through and either correct or ignore the spelling and grammar issues the document finds. When the SPaG check is complete, go back to Spelling & Grammar and then the Readability Statistics will appear on the screen. 5. Go back to the text and go to Review. 6. Click on Spelling and Grammar. 8. The Readability Statistics will then be displayed. Passive Sentences. Flesch Reading Ease Flesche-Kincaid Grade Level

Literacy Focus: Reading The Readability Statistics will then be displayed. Passive Sentences: These are harder to read for most students. The sentence is written in active voice when the subject of the sentence performs the action in the sentence. e.g. The girl was washing the dog. A sentence is written in passive voice when the subject of the sentence has an action done to it by someone or something else. e.g. The dog was being washed by the girl. Flesch Reading Ease: The Flesch Reading Ease readability statistics formula rates text on a 100-point scale based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. The higher the score, the easier it is to understand the document. Flesche-Kincaid Grade Level: This grade level score is based on the US grade system, so may differ slightly for different countries. As a general rule, add 5 to the grade score to get an actual reading age to compare to the student's actual age. The document is made up of 32% passive sentences. The reading age would equate to 13. The Flesch Reading Ease is 58.5%

The Flesch Reading Ease Literacy Focus: Reading The Flesch Reading Ease This table provides an easy breakdown of the scores and the readability of a document. The Flesch Reading Ease of the text is 58.5% Score Notes 100.00-90.00 Very easy to read. Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student. 90.0–80.0 Easy to read. Conversational English for consumers. 80.0–70.0 Fairly easy to read. 70.0–60.0 Plain English. Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students. 60.0–50.0 Fairly difficult to read. 50.0–30.0 Difficult to read. 30.0–0.0 Very difficult to read. Best understood by university graduates.

Literacy Focus: Reading We should be exposing students to challenging reading material. How can students help themselves? Ask students to pre-read texts before the lesson as part of HBL and come to the lesson with questions about the text. Ask students to highlight words they don’t understand and ask them to look these up on their device. Ask students to create their own key word boxes with definitions Encourage students to actively read the text using highlighters and a different coloured pen to write annotations/ summarise ideas. Students could create questions for each other based on the text (ask them to create a test based on the information provided in the text). Use images to present information when appropriate. If students use a reading ruler, ask them to use this in lessons.

Literacy Focus: Reading Possible DART activity: Ask students to summarise key information in a diagram. Limit students to bullet points (event word count) to make them pick out the most important content. Tropical Forests Found near the equator Hot and humid Contain a variety of plants Savannah Found in central Africa, N. Australia and S. America. 2 seasons: dry and rainy Grass, scrub and occasional trees Biome Tropical Forest Savannah Where are they? Climate Vegetation

Insert Headings/ sub-headings Literacy Focus: Reading Insert Headings/ sub-headings Possible DART activity. Create your own headings/ sub-headings Requires active reading and summary Can be reversed to require processing and expansion DARTs are effective reading strategies Xxxxx xxxx xx xxxxx xxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxx xx xxx xx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxxx. Sub-headings help students to understand content Sub-headings can help students summarise content

Reconstruction activities Literacy Focus: Reading DARTS DARTs (directed activities related to texts) are activities which get students to interact with texts. Their aim is to improve students' reading comprehension and to make them critical readers. Reconstruction activities  Definition: activities that require students to reconstruct a text or diagram by filling in missing words, phrases or sentences, or by sequencing text that has been jumbled. Types of activities: Text completion (Fill in missing words, phrases or sentences) Sequencing (Arrange jumbled segments of text in a logical or time sequence) Grouping (Group segments of text according to categories) Table completion (Fill in the cells of a table that has row and column headings, or provide row and column headings where cells have already been filled in) Diagram completion (Complete an unfinished diagram or label a finished diagram.) Prediction activities (Write the next step or stage of a text, or end the text.)

Analysis activities Literacy Focus: Reading DARTS Types of activities: Text marking (find and underline parts of the text that have a particular meaning or contain particular information). Text segmenting and labelling (break the text into meaningful chunks and label each chunk) Table construction (use the information in the text to decide on row and column headings and to fill in the cells) Diagram construction (construct a diagram that explains the meaning of the text. For example, draw a flow chart for a text that explains a process, or a branch diagram for a text that describes how something is classified) Questioning (answer the teacher's questions or develop questions about the text) Summarising (based on key ideas)

Literacy Focus: Reading How do we make texts and reading accessible? We should be exposing all students to challenging reading material in order to improve their vocabulary and reading skills. Use bold to take the reader to key words (especially words they won’t recognise or understand). Use a key word glossary on the board/ text. Use meaningful subheadings (to explain content). Use bullet points to summarise content. Break the text into readable bite-sized chunks. Try to limit the ideas in the text to one per paragraph. Use questions to guide students through the meaning of each paragraph and ask them to find information (DART activities). Read the text as a class and make notes alongside the text.