Build Literacy Learning
An explicit and systematic literacy program to build skills and knowledge with young readers.
As young readers develop and their decoding skills grow, they need to master fluency and comprehension. They also need to build knowledge about their world by reading content-rich books.
Build L i teracy
L e a r ning ™
Paired texts
Content-rich texts that share the same topic – one informative and one narrative are studied in each Text Study Unit.
Phonological awareness
Knowledge of syllables and how sounds map to letter combinations underpins reading and writing.
Phonics
Being able to decode words automatically and efficiently supports students to read fluently. Students review known letter–sound correspondences and continue to learn more challenging phonic code.
High-utility words
High-utility words are useful for students to know for reading and writing. High-utility words can be challenging for students to decode because they contain uncommon letter sound correspondences. Highutility words with irregular spellings are identified in each text. Teachers are supported to explicitly teach these words before students read the book.
Build Literacy Learning is a structured literacy program built around a curated collection of texts organised into topic sets.
Introduce the paired texts
Say: These two books are about rubbish and how we can reduce the amount we produce. No More Rubbish is an informative text and The Rock of Killeen is a narrative text. The informative text is a recount about a group of students who decide to reduce the amount of rubbish they produce. The narrative text is a story about how a group of people f ind a beautiful island and how they keep it rubbish-free.
No More Rubbish
Say: Today we are reading this informative book called No More Rubbish. Before we do, we will practise our decoding skills and learn some new words to help us read the book.
Decoding and word recognition
Phonological awareness
Syllables
Say: The word compost has two syllables com–post. Now say compost without the second syllable.
Repeat with the words something, hardly and swimming Phoneme manipulation
Have students repeat a word after you. Ask them to change a sound and then say the new word. word change sound new word bin add /s/ to the end bins smell /m/ to /p/ spell
★ Phonics
Review
Review the letters wr making the /r/ sound. Write the word wrap on the whiteboard. Have students say the sounds they hear in wrap: /r/ /a/ /p/. Say: The letters wr make the /r/ sound in the word wrap List other words with this letter–sound correspondence. For example, wrote, wring and wrist. Have students write a word with the letters wr making the /r/ sound.
Teach
Teach words in the book with letter–sound correspondences that students may not have learnt. • school: the letters ch making the /k/ sound work: the letters or making the /er/ sound
★ High-utility words
Review high-utility words such as could, our and there using sound–letter charts.
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★ Vocabulary
Teach the meaning of words that might be new to students in the context of how they are used in the text.
compost (pp. 12, 13, 15) A mixture made up of broken-down things such as leftover food, grass clippings, straw and leaves used to help plants grow
Example We put apple cores and banana peels in our compost.
scraps (pp. 12, 13) Leftover bits of food that will not be eaten
Example We threw our food scraps to the chickens.
Text summary
Show the front cover of No More Rubbish. Say: No More Rubbish is a recount about a group of students who work hard to decrease the amount of rubbish they produce in their classroom. They come up with lots of great ways to do this.
Content knowledge
Build students’ content knowledge.
Say: Rubbish is not good for the environment, so it is good to reduce the amount of rubbish you make. This book recounts how a group of children started using lunch boxes rather than lunch wrap for their food, setting up recycling and composting, and reusing things.
Ask: What do you do with your rubbish?
Encourage students to share their ideas.
Text structure
Explain the text structure of the book.
Say: This book is a factual recount. It describes real events in the order that they happened.
Point out features of the book such as the section headings. Say: This book organises information into sections with headings. It is written in chronological order. This means the events are told from the beginning to the end.
★ See pages 9–12 for a detailed instructional sequence for each of these activities.
Build vocabulary
A broad, rich vocabulary is strongly linked to reading comprehension. Each Text Study Unit supports the teaching of vocabulary and word meanings.
No More Rubbish
The Rock of Killeen
The Build Literacy Learning Text Study Units build on students’ existing knowledge to create new knowledge networks. They provide comprehensive teaching and learning related to the text structures and content in the books the students are reading. Each Text Study Unit supports decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, writing and word building. Students will be able to read, comprehend what they read, build word knowledge and write about a topic.
Build Literacy Learning contains writing instruction to build fluency and confidence and is centered around the content students have read about. Teachers are supported to explicitly teach students sentence-level writing skills.
The environment
Fluency
Say: I am going to read aloud f luently. I will make my voice louder or softer, and faster or slower so the story sounds interesting. Read aloud the first two pages. Have students read the book independently. Support students where necessary.
Students could record themselves reading the book using an audio-recording device. Have students listen back to the recording and think about how fluent and smooth their reading sounds. Say: As you read, make the story sound interesting by making your voice go louder or softer, and faster or slower.
Comprehension
Talk about the text
Use the following questions to check students’ understanding of what they have read. Why did the children decide to do something about their rubbish? What things did they do? (Literal) Were these children successful? How do you know? (Inferential) Can all classes do what these children did? Why? Why not? (Critical)
Sequence of events
Say: This book recounts events in the order that they happened. Talk through these events. Say: The first thing that happened was that the children decided to reduce the amount of rubbish they made. In week one they brought lunches to school without wrapping. This reduced a lot of rubbish in their classroom. Write this on the whiteboard.
Ask: What happened next? Use students’ ideas to record the rest of the events in the order that they happened. Discuss and check the book for accuracy.
Students can complete the Graphic organiser: Sequence of events.
See page 82 for the Graphic organiser: Sequence of events.
Writing
Sentence expansion
Write a short sentence on the whiteboard.
We used old drink bottles.
Think aloud as you add more information to the sentence. Say: I am going to add information about when the children reused the bottles. They used the bottles when they did maths.
Write the new sentence.
We used old drink bottles when we did maths.
Ask: Where did the students do maths? Add this information to the sentence.
We used old drink bottles when we did maths in the classroom. Write a sentence on the whiteboard for students to expand.
We used both sides of the paper.
Ask: When did the students use both sides of the paper? Discuss the answers and list them on the whiteboard. For example, when they did their work.
Have students write the sentence with extra information added to it. Students can share their sentences in small groups.
Word building
Morphology
Use week as the base word to demonstrate how to add the suffix ly to change to an adjective.
Write the word week on the whiteboard. Say: I will add the suffix ly to show what something is like or how something is done. week + ly = weekly
Say: Adding the suffix ly to week shows how something is done –it is done weekly. I can use the word in a sentence such as: We put the bins out weekly
Have students write the word quick. Say: Add the suffix ly to the word quick. What does the word quickly mean?
(Something is done with speed or very soon.) Have students say the word quickly in a sentence.
Repeat with the words loud → loudly and strong → strongly
Example of a Text Study Unit from Build Literacy Learning, Collection Two
Content knowledge and text structure
Having background knowledge about the content of a text and understanding the structure of a text supports comprehension. Detailed information about the text, its content and its vocabulary is provided.
Fluency
The books in each collection are curated to help develop students’ confidence and support fluent reading. Instructions for developing fluency are provided.
Writing
The content-rich texts provide teachers with the literacy base for sentence-level writing instruction.
Word building
Word-building activities focus on morphology or building word ladders. Students learn to read and write new words by making compound words and adding suffixes and/or prefixes. Teachers are supported to explicitly teach spelling rules and how prefixes and suffixes can change the meaning or tense of words.
Comprehension
For reading comprehension to occur, students must be able to fluently decode the words in the text. They can then use their background knowledge, vocabulary knowledge and understanding of language to make meaning of what they have read.
• Build Literacy Learning is a program of seven curated collections of student books, each with a comprehensive Teacher Resource Book.
• The texts are ideal for decoding, practising fluency, building content knowledge and vocabulary and developing comprehension.
• The books are paired (one informative text and one narrative text).
• Each pair is central to a Text Study Unit.
• The collections of books are organised into topic sets.
The Text Study Units build on students’ existing knowledge to create new knowledge networks. Each Unit consists of comprehensive teaching and learning activities related to a pair of books. The Units offer opportunities for students to read the texts, comprehend what they read, write about the topic and build word knowledge. Each Text Study Unit follows the same sequence. This ‘low-variance routine’ reduces the students’ cognitive load so they can fully focus on learning.
Text Study Units support
• Decoding and word recognition • Vocabulary development • Content knowledge and text structure • Fluency • Comprehension • Writing • Word building
