Training guide

Classroom Example 5.1: Supporting literacy as a whole school

Listen to the audio or read the transcript for Classroom Example 5.1. In your Teacher Notebook, make a note of the different initiatives Egerton Primary School took to support literacy.

Audio transcript:

In 2008, Egerton Primary School teachers in Kenya were introduced to the TESSA resources. Working together, they decided to make some changes in their school. They organised the desks into groups rather than rows, so learners could work together in pairs and groups.

As they started to use more active approaches to learning and teaching, they noticed that some of the children in Grade 4 were struggling with their work in social studies and science because they could not read very well.

Working together, they put a big emphasis on literacy. They created a space in the school for a library. A group of parents came in and helped to build some shelves. The Head Teacher turned to the local Church, national and international charities, and with their help managed to build a collection of reading books. They used the African Storybook website to find and print stories in the local languages. Younger children had timetabled sessions in the new library and teachers from all subjects worked together to support literacy. Social studies and science teachers looked at the TESSA literacy resources and adapted some of the activities to teach their subject.

There was much excitement around the new library and over time teachers found that children became more confident and enthusiastic readers. One of the teachers set up a scheme where the stronger readers were encouraged to read with those who were less confident during breaks and lunchtimes.

Activity 5.1: Supporting literacy

After listening to/reading the classroom example, in the TGM identify the steps Egerton Primary School took to support literacy.

As a group, discuss literacy in your own school.

• Are you satisfied with the levels of reading?
• How do you know?
• Do you have initiatives in place to support literacy?
• Are they working?

Is there anything that you can take from this example?

In your Teacher Notebook, write:

• three actions you will take this term to support literacy in the school
• two actions to support literacy in your own lessons.

You can make a poster of the three school actions to put in the staff room as a reminder for all teachers that literacy is everyone’s responsibility and to ensure you fulfil the actions by the end of term.

Activity 5.2: Using good questioning skills to help learners with their reading comprehension

This activity can be used at all levels.

In early grades, the learners can listen to the teacher read and then answer questions about what happened in the story. With older learners, they can read the text and then write answers to questions. As children learn to read independently, they can also ask and answer questions with each other.

Choose a multi-paragraph reading from any subject, or a paragraph with a few sentences for lower grade. In the TGM, read and practise this activity so that you are really prepared in your next lesson.

Lower order questions: yes/no answers; can you…?/do you…?/is…?
                                      4x4= …?
                                      What colour is Peter’s shirt?

Higher order questions: What/Why/How/When/How often/Where?

Remember that higher-order questions are ones which will require learners to think, and there will not necessarily be one right answer. They also require a longer response.

When working with Classes 1 and 2, read aloud a short paragraph and ask the learners to answer a question on what they’ve heard.

With older learners, you can write the questions for paragraph one on the board. Give learners two minutes to find the answers and ask them to put their hands in the air when they think they know them. Ask different learners to answer and put their answers on the board. If the answer is wrong, write it up and ask if they all agree so that other learners correct it, not you. Remember the work you did with course 3 resources about the importance of positive feedback and prompting, as well as correcting learners. 

Now repeat with subsequent paragraphs or sentences.

This activity will help learners with their ‘scanning’ skills as they have to quickly look through the paragraph to find the answers. Speed is important so stop them after two or three minutes! If books are not available, learners may need to first copy the paragraphs from the blackboard, so allow time for this.

Classroom Example 5.2: Using pair work to support reading in social studies

Listen to the audio, or read the transcript, and make notes in your Teacher Notebook about:

• What issues teacher Rita noticed when learners did the pair work activity?
• How she addressed these?

Audio transcript:

Rita teaches Social studies in Grade 6. She was teaching ‘6.5.1: Elements of weather and climate’ and noticed that learners had difficulties with weather words they were not very familiar with. She selected some words they were familiar with and others which were causing problems for learners.

She wrote the words and their definitions on separate pieces of paper. She asked the learners to form pairs with the person next to them. This meant that they worked with a friend and often high attainers were together and lower attainers were together. She gave each pair 10 words and 10 definitions and asked them to match the words and definitions. When they had done their words and she had checked them, they swapped their words and definitions with another pair.

Some pairs completed it very quickly, but some found it very difficult and needed a great deal of help, so it was difficult to organise. She discussed the experience with her friend who taught grade 4.

She decided to keep the pairs how they were but gave them different sets of words. The high attainers had longer more complex words, including some they had never met before and had to guess the meaning of, and the low attainers had shorter, common words.

She found it worked well. The low-attainers gained confidence and learned some common words which would help them in the future, and the high-attainers were challenged to try and read and understand new words.

Did you notice:

• Rita realised her activity had not worked well because of how she had organised the activity.
• Rita asked her friend for suggestions.
• Rita decided to use different sets of words for the different learners in her class to ensure they all worked at their own level.

This activity could be adapted for any grade and subject.

Activity 5.3: Developing vocabulary skills with TESSA resources

In your TGM and working with a partner, find a TESSA activity that you can adapt to focus on developing your learners’ vocabulary skills. You will find this activity easier if you use the Curriculum Guide to help you find a relevant TESSA resource for your lesson. Whatever you are teaching in the curriculum, there are suggestions of helpful TESSA resources to help you in your lesson planning.

Think about how Rita focused on the vocabulary that her learners were finding problematic. You could try a similar approach to Rita, using a different topic.

Prepare the activity and resources together ensuring you write these in your Teacher Notebook. Try it in your classrooms and write your reflections in your Teacher Notebook. In the next TGM, share your reflections with your colleagues.

Activity 5.4: Using local resources to support home-language literacy

Watch this teacher as she describes how she uses local resources to develop her Grade 1 learners’ literacy skills in their home language. You should recognise this teacher as you have already seen videos of this teacher using her resources in previous courses.

Being able to read involves:

• understanding that print carries meaning
• a knowledge of letters and sounds to recognise letters and words
• comprehension of what is being read.

As you watch the clip, think about which of the three bullet points above are being focused on by the teacher, and why. Make sure you write your thoughts in your Teacher Notebook to share with colleagues.

View transcript

Think about how you can use locally available resources to develop your learners’ literacy skills. Remember to speak with your colleagues to share ideas and resources they might have used already.

Activity 5.5: Creating a print-rich environment

In one school in Zambia, teachers hung activity envelopes on trees in the play area for children to explore during their breaks. These were extremely popular with the learners and are a great example of a print-rich school.

Look around your school and think about the questions below. Write your responses in your Teacher Notebook and share them with your colleagues in the next TGM.

1. What examples of a print-rich learning environment can you see in the school?
2. How did the teacher produce them?
3. Share two things that you have done or would like to do to make your classroom more print rich.
4. Think about your school. Would a visitor describe it as a print-rich learning environment? If not, what can you as teachers do to change that?

Activity 5.6: Using writing from your local environment for group work

The following activity involves collecting examples of writing in the local environment as the basis for a simple reading and discussion activity in the classroom. Since most of the examples are likely to be in English, this would be a good activity for Grade 4 or above, but it can also be used to support social studies topics around ‘living in the community’ for Grades 1 and 2.  You can find TESSA resources to help with this activity in Literacy Module 1, Section 3 and in Life Skills Module 2, Section 2.

In the TGM, work with a colleague to make a list of writing from your local environment that your learners may be familiar with or find interesting. Look out for examples at home, on your journey to work and within the school grounds. These could be on signs, adverts, labels, packaging etc. Write the words or phrases that you have collected in large letters on strips of paper and fold them up.

Begin by explaining to your learners what you have collected. Put the learners in small groups of three or four and give each group several folded strips of paper. You can do this randomly by getting groups to pick them from a container, or selectively by allocating strips according to your learners’ attainment levels (as teacher Rita did in Classroom Example 5.2).

Ask the learners to unfold their strip/s and have a short discussion about where the writing might be found and what it means. Ask each group to then ‘show and tell’ their words to the class.

As a follow up, you could give each of your learners a blank strip of paper and ask them to look for new words or phrases over the next week on their way home from school, in their home or in their neighbourhood. You can use these for a similar group activity or put them on the word wall for other learners to read and talk about.

You can also ask your learners to bring into class any printed material they find in their home or village that is no longer being used and make a wall display from it. If you have access to a camera and printer, you could take close-up photos of examples of writing in your local environment and print out copies to display. You can also set up a collection box in the school where written materials of any sort can be dropped off for other teachers and learners to use.

Activity 5.7: Teaching and assessing literacy skills across the curriculum

In your TGM, working with a partner, look at your teaching plans for next week.

• Highlight all the opportunities that you will have to include a literacy focus in all your lessons.
• Highlight all the opportunities that there might be for assessing reading in all your lessons.
• Plan some activities that you could use for this and share them with the group.
• If you are a specialist teacher, make a list of key words which learners find difficult and plan ways you could make sure all learners in the class understand them. This can include demonstration, explanation and translation into their home language.
• Plan when and how you will assess your learners’ literacy. You will not be able to assess every learner in every lesson, but you can aim to assess all of them over the course of a week.

Classroom Example 5.3: Using local resources to support literacy in science

Listen to the audio or read the transcript. In your Teacher Notebook, makes notes of the activity teacher Samuel prepared to support literacy in Grade 3, and how teacher Paxina adapted the activity for her Grade 6 lesson.

Audio transcript:

Teacher Samuel was teaching his Grade 3 class about animals and where they live. He teaches them in Chitonga. Only about 25 are confident readers out of the class of 76. He found pictures of six animals and stuck them up on the classroom wall. He then drew pictures of where they live and stuck those up on the other side of the room. He made some cards out of old food packets and wrote the name of an animal on half of them and the name of where they live on the other half (all in Chitonga). He gave half of the class the name of an animal and the other half the places where they live. To begin with each learner had to stand next to the picture corresponding to their animal or place. This was to check that all the children could understand the words they were given. They then had to walk around the room to find a partner who had the name of where their animal lived. For example, ‘gorilla’ was matched with ‘rainforest’; ‘worm’ with ‘mud’ and so on. When everyone was paired up, Samuel collected in the cards and gave them out again so everyone had a different word. He did this a few times until he was confident that all the children could recognise the words and they knew where each animal might live.

At the next TGM, he explained his idea to the other teachers.

Teacher Paxina was also doing science with Grade 6. She adapted the activity but wrote the words in English. Also, when the pairs had found each other, they had to discuss how their animal was adapted to where it lived. At the end, they had to write a sentence about each animal and why it lived in a certain place.

Did you notice...

• Samuel wanted to make sure that his learners could read in their own language. Research shows that children are more likely to be successful in the long term if they can read in their own language before learning English.
• Paxina used the activity with older learners to support literacy AND to teach the scientific concepts.
• The activity could be adapted for any subject. In numeracy, half the children could have a sum and the other half an answer.

Activity 5.8: Collaborating with others

Choose any story that you want to read with learners. Select a story that is good for asking questions about – questions which will make learners think. It could be from a book or a story you know well and can remember, or you could write or make up your own story.

During the TGM:

1. Practise by reading the story aloud to a partner, with expression and gestures. Think about how you will introduce the story to the learners?
2. In your Teacher Notebook, write down questions you can ask during and after the story. You can use ‘wh’ questions during the story to check that learners understand what is happening; use open-ended questions and questions that encourage learners to use their imagination. A good way to get learners to talk is to stop at an exciting point and ask, ‘what do you think will happen next?’

In the classroom:

3. When you have told the story, have a discussion about it with your learners using the questions that you prepared.

After the lesson:

4. Make notes in your Teacher Notebook about how the activity went.

• Were the questions suitable?
• Did you need to give more time to learners to respond?
• Was the story too long? Should you read in shorter or longer sections?

Activity 5.9: Learners telling stories

Watch this Class 1 student telling a story (based on a traditional Zambian folktale) to her class. What does the teacher do to ensure that all the other learners are involved and listening to the story?

Think about how you could use your learners as storytellers in your classroom and share ideas with your colleagues in the TGM.

Activity 5.10: Understanding syntax and synonyms

This is a lively activity for older learners. Use your time in the TGM to try it out on each other.

Copy onto the board a short factual reading or paragraph of approximately four or five sentences that your learners have recently completed in one of their textbooks.

Get a learner to read it aloud. Ask another learner to come to the front and erase all the adjectives. Then ask the class or a volunteer to read it aloud again including the now-missing adjectives.

Ask another learner to erase all the nouns. Then ask the class or a volunteer to read it aloud again, including the now-missing adjectives AND nouns. Repeat with verbs, adverbs, articles, punctuation until there is virtually no text.

You can then, if you want to, rebuild the paragraph using learners to come up and write in the missing sentences.

Another way to use this activity could be to ask learners to replace the words with synonyms. For example, after you have removed all adjectives, ask learners to add a suitable synonym.

Activity 5.11: Setting up a classroom reading corner for silent reading

In the TGM, read through the suggestions listed below for supporting reading. Work with a colleague to share ideas about what would work best in your school. Make sure you each commit to doing two of the things on the list.

Here are some ideas from teachers who have been developing their book areas and libraries in school.

• Ask relatives and friends with older children if they have any books at home that their children no longer want.
• Contact another school or a teacher in your school and exchange books with them.
• Write to NGOs such as World Vision and Child Fund to ask if they could contribute in any way.
• Cut out suitable reading texts from colour magazines and paste them into books or on charts.
• Collect newspapers, magazines and comics to add to the collection. Encourage your learners to find suitable reading materials from their communities.
• When you have access to the internet, visit the African Storybook (www.africanstorybook.org) website. Here you will find hundreds of stories at different levels in a range of African languages. Download some onto your phone or the school computer.

Ensure that your collection appeals to a range of levels of reading ability and not just your highest attainers. Include a variety of genres among the books available, such as:

• storybooks
• factual books on sport, nature, making things, etc.
• dictionaries and atlases
• poetry
• joke and riddle books
• books in your learners’ home languages, if possible.

Bookmaking

Older learners can produce a book containing their own poems or stories. They could write a short play, develop a book about a topic that has been focused on in their lessons or write a book for younger readers. They can design a cover for their book to make others want to read it.

Activity 5.12: Reviewing school and personal action plans to support literacy

Activity 5.1 invited you to: ‘In your Teacher Notebook, write:

• three actions you will take this term to support literacy in the school
• two actions to support literacy in your own lessons.

You can make a poster of the three school actions to put in the staff room as a reminder for all teachers that literacy is everyone’s responsibility and to ensure you fulfil the actions by the end of term.’

Go back to those actions, and before the TGM, take some time to write your personal reflections on:

• how you have supported literacy in your lessons, and
• how you are all supporting literacy throughout your school.

In the TGM, share your reflections and discuss whether you can see a change in your approach and the school’s outcomes in literacy?

In the future, you could use one TGM at the end of the year to reflect specifically on the whole school approach to literacy and decide on what strategies to adopt in the following year to promote it with all teachers.

Activity 5.13: Reflecting on your professional development

On your own, look back through your Teacher Notebook and make a summary of some of the main things you have learned in this course.

What has helped you to learn? Are there any critical incidents that made a big impact on you? Think back to last term – write down any ways in which your lessons are different now.

Discuss your reflections with a colleague and set yourselves three targets each for next month. Think about the things that you think you need to improve and what you can do to achieve that improvement.

Activity 5.14: Reviewing your learning Quiz

Complete the quiz here