Our Journey So Far Bethal Primary School Ayla Kaygisiz Bhophinder Kaur

School overview Located in Meadow Heights, northern suburbs Approximately 250 students More than 60 % of students come from a Language background other than English Nearly 80 % of families receive EMA

Before Achievement Improvement Zones 7 High Reliability Literacy Teaching Procedures (HRLTPs) were trialled in a 5/6 classroom last year, with support from Pam Siostram who provided the literature by John Munro Students were engaged and I was impressed by the depth of conversations that followed

Trialling Getting Knowledge Ready Unit co-ordinators were informed about Getting knowledge ready and were asked to share with their teams and implement it in their classrooms. Staff were approaching Learning Leaders for reassurance about what to do. This created a need to develop a uniform approach throughout the school.

Time – when to fit it all in Incorporating Early Years and Middle Years strategies – how does it fit in? Reluctance of some teachers to take the information on board Applying it to all year levels Challenges

Getting Knowledge Ready Staff were given an overview of Getting Knowledge Ready at an after school PD as well as an implementation plan.

Implementation Plan GKR 5 week trial in every classroom Daily focus, minutes in whole class Reading session Explicit language to be used by teachers and students Explicit questioning Pre and post test

Implementation Plan week 1 Lesson 1Lesson 2Lesson 3Lesson 4Lesson 5 GKR – Visualisation given the title only. Students ask themselves “What does it remind me of?” Give them time to visualise what might be described in it. Students draw or orally express visualistions. GKR – paraphrase the title/suggest synonyms What’s another way of saying the title? What words might come up in the text? Read the text and make comparisons with list. GKR – use a different picture book. Talk and write in sentences about the pictures they see in the text. Also ask “How might the picture be different in 20 minutes etc..?” Read the book GKR – read a picture story book. Ask students “What are you going to do before reading? How are you going to get your knowledge ready?” What are some 5W and H questions that we can ask based on the text? Catch up lesson

Implementation Plan- week 2 Lesson 1Lesson 2Lesson 3Lesson 4Lesson 5 Pre-test Given 2 pictures (front cover of picture story books), students to write out GKR strategies taught ie. In sentences, asking questions etc. Students to spend 5-7 min doing pre- test. GKR – Visualisation given the title only or using big book. GKR – Paraphrase title/suggest synonyms and what words might come up in the text. Read the text and make comparisons with list. GKR – another picture book. Talk and write in sentences about the pictures they see in the text. Catch up lesson

Pre and post test Students were given two pictures and had 5 minutes to write about the pictures, based on what they know about Getting Knowledge Ready. At the end of five weeks, there was a post test, to see if there was an improvement in what they had learnt about Getting Knowledge Ready.

Initial Staff Response ‘I don’t think they can write their information in 5 minutes’ ‘why are we doing this?’ ‘little ones can’t do it’ After a demonstration by Learning Leader, staff were amazed at the standard of work produced by their students

Our findings In most of the grades, students could only come up with a few sentences during the pre test The improvement was remarkable in the post test – students made predictions and what could happen in ten minutes and asked questions. Students were asked to do a self evaluation on the post test to see how they did and what they could do better

Staff feedback A grade 1/2 teacher said that when working out meanings of new words, her students are saying, “Let’s use our meaning making motor.” “I did the GKR and Vocabulary because I was told to do it, but now I can see the value of it. The students are asking questions and trying to work out meanings of words without looking them up in the dictionary. They are starting to think of synonyms before I can even ask them.”

Vocabulary, Reading aloud and Paraphrasing One strategy is introduced each term Teachers are given an overview at an after school PD and are also given the implementation plan (week by week, day by day) Teachers were given the opportunity to provide feedback and share their experiences or critical incidents We initially planned for 5 lessons per week, but have now cut it down to 3 to allow teachers to focus on other aspects of Literacy.

Applying the HRLTPs to other curriculum areas Teachers were also asked to apply the strategies taught to Maths, Integrated Curriculum, P.E. Performing Arts and Art lessons.

What next? Term 4 we will be trialling Paraphrasing Term – revisit the four strategies taught in 2008 Terms 2 – 4, 2009 trial rest of the HRLTPs By end of 2010 we expect a 15% improvement in Literacy