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4. Supporting reading and writing across different subjects

4.2. Assessing literacy skills

If you are a specialist teacher, you may find that some of your learners cannot read and write very well and need support with basic literacy to help them access the curriculum.

All teachers need to be aware of the literacy challenges that learners face, so it is important to create opportunities to assess literacy. This requires careful planning.

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.

When you have taught a lesson, it is important to reflect on how it went, so that you can adjust your plans in the future. Here are some questions you can ask yourself. Write the responses in your Teacher Notebook.

  1. Did this activity help children to develop their reading skills? If so, which aspects?
    For example, vocabulary development, speaking and listening skills, and/or fine motor skills.
  2. Did the children enjoy the activity?
  3. Did all the children take part in the activity?
  4. What would you do differently next time?


Teacher including literacy through reading in the home language in a social studies lesson.

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