Planning for Literacy

This article was first published in Volume 30 of Practical Literacy- the Early and Primary Years​, an Australian Literacy Educators Association Publication.

Planning for Literacy
Isn’t it fabulous when you are given time release to plan? Perhaps you’re given an hour, a half day, or if you’re lucky, a whole day! So plan for your CRT, tidy your desk, close up your emails and sit down to begin. But where, you may ask, should you begin?
Planning individual lessons, units of lessons or a term overview is a big process that requires many considerations. Collaboration is highly respected by schools and where possible, planning with others is a valuable approach. Through working collaboratively, early career teachers are supported and guided while experienced teachers have the opportunity to share their unique knowledge. By planning collaboratively, the teachers involved experience agency. In comparison to being handed a plan, teachers who plan collaboratively feel a greater sense of connection to the material they will present and a deeper understanding of the ‘why’. This translates to better prepared teachers and students receiving greater clarity of the learning intentions.
In this article I share one way to plan. This is by no means a didactic article, however, if you find yourself stuck and unsure of a path, perhaps this process may be of help.
Begin big and then move to the granular.

Know the curriculum
The first place to start is with the mandated curriculum. It is important to know the content that is required for a specific year level. This may be in the form of the state curriculum or the Australian curriculum. Many departments provide a scope and sequence to guide the order and stages of skills to be taught. In some cases, schools have created their own scope and sequence. Familiarity with these documents is important before embarking on the planning process.

Address the assessment schedule
Many schools have a formalised assessment schedule. If this is not available, it is useful to create an assessment guide that will inform the length and time for teaching certain skills. Map the mandated assessments into a term planner and then consider additional assessments that may need to be conducted in time for reporting. As assessment tasks are added to the planner, the team can then work backwards to consider what needs to be taught, and when. Time for pre assessments should be scheduled as well as identifying key moments throughout a series of lessons in which formative assessments can or will be conducted. Ensure the team understands that flexibility in the schedule is necessary and dependent on the results of formative assessments. For this reason, it can be helpful to schedule one or two ‘buffer’ weeks within the term for review or extension of a concept.

Look at your data
Individual schools often select specific assessments that are consistent throughout the school. In literacy, there are a range of different assessments to choose from and students are usually allocated a reading level that aligns to the selected assessment system.
Using these diagnostic assessments, along with teacher annotations about strengths and weaknesses can help to form some useful assumptions about the cohort of students. Decisions can then be made about a reasonable division of time over the term and within individual weeks, for the teaching of skills such as decoding, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency.
Assessment of writing can be seen as a more subjective task. There are some assessment tools that can give information on grammar, punctuation, and spelling, however, student writing samples and teacher judgements provide greater holistic information about students’ writing. Once again, looking at these teacher-judged writing samples can help to group students, as well as make generalisations about the cohort’s strengths and weaknesses. Decisions then need to be made about the division of time for writing skills such as grammar, punctuation, vocabulary, text types and structure, as well as ideas and voice.
Spelling tests can give an insight into what your students might be able to do when writing words in context. It’s helpful to use a spelling analysis template to understand the students’ strengths and challenges. Christine Topfer has a useful diagnostic tool in her ‘Guiding Thinking for Effective Spelling’ book.  With this information, decisions can be made about the greatest needs of the students.

Look at the other subjects
For a truly integrated program, it is important to think about the subjects that typically lie outside of literacy. Considerations should be made about the history, geography, science and social/emotional units covered within the term. Scour the library and the internet for texts that will support these subjects. Consider the writing genres that would best jigsaw together with these units. E.g. A science unit about animals lends itself beautifully to learning about the structure, style and vocabulary of information texts or explanation genres. Ideally, thoroughly teaching two to three text types within a term is the best approach so that students can work through the whole writing process.

Plan your mentor texts
Armed with some great texts that align to all areas of the curriculum (don’t forget there are some good maths texts too), as well as a plan for the text types to be taught in writing, it’s time to block these out over the term. Match the mentor texts to the style of writing to be taught. Consider where each text will fit with the other subject areas, and the amount of time needed for scaffolding before releasing the reins on the text type writing. Repeated readings of these texts is highly recommended.
Make decisions about how the texts will be presented to the students. Are they texts that students can read independently, or will they need support in the form of shared reading? If the texts are complex and long, the teacher may need to read it to the students. In some cases, an excerpt from the text can be copied and given to students to read, highlight and annotate, while the teacher reads other parts of the text to the whole class.

Align comprehension strategies and a vocabulary cycle
With a selection of texts mapped out, circle back to the curriculum and the school’s scope and sequence to understand the best time to explicitly teach specific comprehension strategies. Good readers use multiple comprehension strategies at any one time, however, it’s still important to make time for teaching and modelling each strategy explicitly. Match the strategies to the selected books. For example, an Anna Walker book works brilliantly for modelling inferring. On the other hand, an Aaron Blabey book will support compare and contrast.
After selecting the mentor texts and comprehension strategies to explicitly teach, mine the books for the best tier 2 words. Consider the full vocabulary cycle and work as a team to select the words, create student friendly definitions, and brainstorm synonyms and antonyms, along with visuals that will help the students understand the meaning. Plan a pre-assessment of these words for the beginning of the term, block out times to introduce the words, have opportunities for practise and word play, and then plan a summative assessment for the end of the cycle. The Vocabulary Knowledge Scale, developed by Wesche & Paribakht (1996), is a great tool to use for both the pre and post assessment.
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Finalise the plan
Explicit phonics, grammar, decoding strategies and spelling instruction are the finishing touches to the term plan. Some of these elements may already be mapped out as a result of the data analysis. Any additional skills that are required to be taught should be added in. These final elements are easily aligned with any text or topic and therefore, easy to insert wherever there is space.
Finally, double check against the curriculum to ensure everything has been covered. With this collaboratively planned document, teachers have the knowledge and space to create their own classroom versions as determined by the school and context. In some privileged schools, team planning is a weekly occurrence, and once again, each individual lesson can be a collaboration of minds, benefiting from the strengths of everyone within the team.
 
Tips for finding great mentor texts
A mentor text is any text that is considered a well written model for students to read, analyse and borrow ideas from. The purpose of a mentor text depends on the learning intention for a writing lesson and therefore, the same text can be used multiple times for various foci. Sharing an exemplary version of what students are trying to achieve helps to unlock the secret of writing. Some examples of how and when to use a mentor text include: the structure of a text type, sentence structure, ideas and word choice.
Librarians are a wonderful resource for finding the right mentor text. They do the ordering and cataloguing, and they are the ones contacted by different publishers who are wanting to spruik the  next best thing in literature.
Publishers’ websites, authors’ websites and teacher bloggers are another great way to find mentor texts. Follow your favourite people on Instagram and see which current books they are recommending.
Mentor texts don’t have to take the form of a published book. Wonderful writing can be found in brochures, magazines, newspapers and online too.
Why not start a team or school document with each teacher’s favourite texts and why they love them?