1. Supporting learners with literacy difficulties in the secondary classroom
The nature of secondary schools means that we’re moving about, not seeing the same pupils all the time. We have a wide range of pupils with needs and it can be difficult to keep track of them. We need practical solutions that can be embedded as part of the natural course of our practice.

2. We’ve all experienced:
Class clown
Talking rather than settling
Not paying attention
Labelling pupils as having needs can sometimes be unhelpful in literacy. Educational psychologists recognise that there is a spectrum of difficulty in relation to literacy and not everyone who’d struggling will not necessarily have a diagnosis. The class clown may be distracting you from their difficulties; talking rather than settling might be someone checking what to do; not paying attention may be someone struggling to process spoken language.

3. problems
Become discouraged very quickly due to lack of initial success
‘Inattentive / lazy’ – they may be working harder than everyone else
No new motivation – little experience of success
Lack self-confidence
Appear to avoid work
Disorganised
Lack stamina
Have a poor self-image
It can be very difficult for many pupils to access literacy rich courses, so what we should be doing is making our classrooms accessible for all as a matter of course, whether or not we have individuals with records of needs. Good practice is to create accessibility for all.

4. What areas are affected?
Reading
Spelling
Writing
Memory
Concentration
Personal organisation
Self-esteem
metacognition
Literacy difficulties can affect a whole range of areas – addressing these can have an impact on closing the attainment gap.

5. Before units / tasks begin
Provide equipment checklists
Send a list of upcoming vocabulary home to parents with explanations of meanings
We’re going to look at practical strategies that can be used in any classroom, in any subject and in any lesson. Things highlighted in purple are for some specific pupils who might have a diagnosis of dyslexia – otherwise, these are things that can and should be done as a matter of course.
Look here at the booklet and some of the things contained there – e.g. labelling cupboards in science with pictures of equipment as well as names

6. Starting out on tasks- the basics
Make learning intentions clear
Always write page and question numbers on the board
Encourage students to discuss the nature of tasks before starting individual work
Ask students to repeat what they have to do
Issue one task at a time
Provide models and/or templates for layout
LIs – these should be kept visible in the classroom so that pupils can reorientate themselves and remind themselves of the purpose of what they’re doing if they get lost.
Models and templates should be for layout. Beware of automatically making tasks easier for pupils by giving them frameworks or information unless they need things to be made easier. It’s about making tasks accessible, not about changing the nature of the task unless they pupil is working at a level below others.

7. The tasks themselves
Have a series of mini-break activities students can opt into when they need to
Allow students to ask those around them for help
Provide print outs of notes
If there are a range of tasks, prioritise them if they don’t all need to be completed
Consider setting time limits
Asking others helps those who are being asked as they have to articulate the task / approach
Print outs save copying and free up time – copying is a wasted task which is stressful for those who struggle with literacy
Prioritising tasks can reduce stress
Time limits prevent pupils from spending all their time on 1 task

8. Differentiation
Accessibility not simplification Teach up, not down John Hattie: learning should be held constant and time should be allowed to vary, rather than the opposite.

9. Sometimes we: Pre teach ideas Remove complex texts Make ideas simpler
Teach basic, generic skills
Provide writing frames and word banks
We need to be clear about what we’re dealing with. If a pupil is working at a lower level than others then they should have work which they can access at that level. If however it is their literacy skills holding them back, we need to make sure that we’re not limiting their ability by making things too simple for them. We need to make the literacy element accessible, not make the task easier. Challenge is still important.

10. Picking up where they left off
Reading
Decoding
Processing
Comprehension
Picking up where they left off
Let’s look at the individual literacy elements which might make up tasks within a classroom and think about the issues which children might face.
Within reading tasks, pupils might face challenegs in:
Decoding – reading the letters
Processing – turning the letters into words
Comprehension - understanding

11. Increased line spacing Avoid shiny whiteboards & glossy paper
Decoding & Processing
bigger text
Increased line spacing
Avoid shiny whiteboards & glossy paper
Consider recordings / text to speech
These are the practical things you can do to help with the basics

12. Other basic practicalities
Try to avoid italics /underlining
Key information should be separated and highlighted – e.g. in a box
Break up continuous prose with bullet points / numbers

13. Picking up where they left off / finding a place
Highlighting where they are
Looking at task first and highlighting what might be useful
Getting pupils to own the text and manipulate it so it works for them

14. Checking readability Word Click the File tab, and then click Options.
Click Proofing.
When correcting spelling and grammar in Word, make sure the Check grammar with spelling check box is selected.
Select Show readability statistics.
After you enable this feature, open a file that you want to check, and check the spelling. When Outlook or Word finishes checking the spelling and grammar, it displays information about the reading level of the document.
We also need to think about the nature of the text we’re giving them. The important thing is to make sure we don’t make the text simpler in terms of aspects such as subject specific vocabulary – we’re making sentences shorter and less complex, not simplifying ideas or concepts.

15. Flesch Reading Ease Score – 100 point scale – the higher the number, the easier it is to understand
Aim for between 60-70
Flesch – Kincaid grade level score – rates text on a US grade-school level – i.e. a score of 5 means a 10 year old can understand it (5th grader).
Aim for a score of approximately 7 to 8
Don’t take out subject terminology – make sentences shorter

16. Comprehension Vocabulary work Be clear about how the text is used.
Why do we read in different subjects?
How does that influence our response / expectations?
What are we going to ask students to do with the text? (find facts, agree / disagree etc – identify instruction words)
Specific work on building vocabulary is shown to have an impact after the age of 8 – so you could have words of the week, vocabulary building tests etc
Comprehension is about more than simple tricks however. We also need to think about the way we approach texts.
We also need to make sure that pupils think about the purpose of the text before they read – this is something that is needed to be pushed on a whole school basis. We need to look at the types of texts we’re using and make this explicit to pupils.

17. Renfrewshire / Sue Ellis: Disciplinary Literacy approach
Put definitions of words pupils will come across on the board
Pupils call out / hands up if they think a word matches a definition
At the end, pupils recreate the text through group discussion
Then pupils recreate the text individually
Renfrewshire have been working with Sue Ellis of the University of Strathclyde to look at literacy across learning and the way we deal with reading comprehension across subjects. One strategy that they’ve been trialling is to approach unknown words in a different, more active way. They start with the text rather than the word, asking pupils to work out which definitions match the words, then breaking the text down in groups so they understand it, then building it back up again individually. This has been trialled across whole schools.

18. Note-taking Listening Delays in processing information
Inability to listen and write at same time
Inability to read handwriting
Copying
Copies rather than understands
Unsupported copying should never be the only source of subject information
We have to be particularly aware when we ask students to take notes. There are issues with both taking notes from listening and from reading.

19. Note-taking Provide skeleton notes in advance – key headings
Give full lesson notes which they can highlight while others are note-taking
Photocopy pages from a book so they can highlight it
Encourage to read 1st and last sentences of paragraphs
Consider recording the lesson
Specific teaching about how to store notes – dividers, order
Practical things that can help note taking – while we might often just direct these strategies to individuals, many are worth adapting as a whole class approach. Why not record your lessons and have them on your Edmodo page? Why not teach the whole class how to be organised within your subject? This is particularly true at Higher – you can have a whole lesson on organising notes effectively.

20. Listening Delays in processing requests / information
Reluctance to respond
Missing important information such as page numbers
Some of the issues some pupils face

21. Listening solutions Summarise what you’ve said at the end
Repeat instructions several times / at key points
Use physical prompts – e.g. use fingers for listing tasks
Write page numbers down
Things we don’t think of – e.g. using fingers for listing tasks – giving a visual cue

22. Delays in processing lead to seemingly irrelevant contributions
Discussion
Delays in processing lead to seemingly irrelevant contributions
Problems with turn taking
Interrupting in case they forget

23. discussion Teach turn-taking explicitly, including cues
Encourage pupils to wait for responses before moving on
Ensure classmates respond appropriately
Specifically teach pupils how to wait for others, how to draw others into the conversation, how not to get annoyed if someone interrupts but deal with it politely

24. Writing What are you testing? List key words / terms / spellings
Accept alternatives – mind maps, diagrams, bullet points, recorded voice files
Provide blanks of diagrams, charts, tables
Obviously, sometimes students have to write. It’s important that extended writing is evident across the whole curriculum. However, writing isn’t always necessary and we have to think about what we’re actually assessing in a task.

25. Using ICT What are the issues? How do we overcome them?
Handout – laptop use by dyslexic students in the secondary classroom. Have a read through. Also the CALL Scotland handouts on android and iPad apps that can support pupils.

26. Getting to the end of tasks
Summarise what you’ve covered
Create opportunities to practice
Think of ways to create extra time – have an additional non essential task, hand out notes instead of copying
Don’t automatically set unfinished reading/writing as homework
Make sure homework is recorded correctly
Homework = more extension. Also consider flipped classroom practices – where homework is the actual learning, by watching a video of you for example, then the development work is done in the classroom where you can reinforce the learning where needed.

27. Organisation / coordination
Forgetting books, equipment, homework
Following the wrong timetable
Getting lost
Lateness
Taking a long time to settle
We also ened to think about supporting pupils across the whole school

28. Organisation strategies
Provide checklists for books / equipment
Communicate with parents about timekeeping / homework
Try different timetable formats – different days in different colours
Keep in class til crowds disappear
Consider teaching laboratory/ workshop safety in a multi- sensory way so they use all of their senses to determine safety

29. What development work can you do to ensure that literacy support is embedded
In your classroom?
In your department?
In your school?
Final task – from what you’ve heard, what are steps you can take to improve the experience of learners, whether with a literacy difficulty or not, in your classroom?