Teaching and Learning Primary English sample

Chapter

1

Summary

WELCOME TO TEACHING AND LEARNING PRIMARY ENGLISH

DAMON THOMAS

• Teaching English is important but can also seem overwhelming. The amount of English content taught in primary school is considerable.

• The central metaphor of the text is a travel guide to help navigate the often complicated, crowded, and interconnected landscape of English education.

• The Australian Curriculum: English guides English teaching in Australian schools. It divides English into three strands: language, literacy, and literature. Each strand is divided into substrands, and each substrand is used to organise a list of content descriptions that teachers should teach and assess in each year level.

• Explicit instruction is the main pedagogical approach underpinning the teaching and learning experiences in the text’s chapters.

• The many destinations of this book are tied together by the notion of mentor texts, used by primary school teachers to model how proficient readers and writers make meaning in culturally relevant ways.

Points of interest

• Introduction 0 3

• English education as a travel guide 0 3

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• T he three strands of the Australian Curriculum 0 4

• English as a coherent and cumulative body of knowledge 0 5

• W hat is explicit instruction? 0 6

• Summary of explicit instruction 0 9

• Mentor texts 11

Introduction

It is a very exciting time to be an English teacher. More than ever before is known about the intricacies of oral language, reading, writing, multimodal and digital texts, and children’s literature. Pioneering research has revealed teaching approaches that enable deep student learning, the cognitive processes that occur as students engage in literate practices, factors that make learning different aspects of English difficult for some learners, and the relationship between English learning in primary school and a person’s life chances.

Teaching English well is important for every primary school teacher, but it can also seem overwhelming—and for good reason! English is without question the most commonly taught learning area in classrooms. Based on the number of content descriptions in the Australian Curriculum documents, the amount of English content that must be taught between the beginning and end of primary school is considerably greater than the next highest area: mathematics. This is because speaking, listening, reading, writing, viewing, and creating are social practices that rely on highly complex cognitive processes, and their teaching requires specialised knowledge about the English language itself, how children develop literacy skills to use English for different communicative purposes, and how to analyse, explore, interpret, and experiment with children’s literature. This book was written to deal with these complexities and promote the effective teaching and learning of primary English.

English education as a travel guide

The central metaphor of this text is that of a travel guide (see Figure 1.1). Travel guides help travellers understand and plan trips through unfamiliar cities and locations. They do not aim to cover everything about a place; instead, they provide information about the most significant sights and things to do. Teaching and Learning Primary English was designed to meet a similar purpose, bringing together the most important aspects of English education theory and pedagogy with a novel organisation and design to promote deep understanding of the content. This text aims to assist teachers at every career stage to navigate the often complicated, crowded, and interconnected landscape of English education.

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Figure 1.1 Travel guide

This introductory chapter is split into three parts. First, the Australian Curriculum: English is drawn on to offer a definition of English as a learning area comprising the three components of language, literacy, and literature. Second, explicit instruction is introduced as a key pedagogical approach underpinning the chapters of the text. Third, the text’s structure is outlined, highlighting in greater detail how its design hopes to make learning and engaging with the content efficient, inspiring, and empowering.

English according to the Australian Curriculum

Primary school teachers must grapple with many aspects of English education and so it is helpful that the Australian Curriculum: English details what should be taught in every primary year level and beyond. The curriculum writers divide English into three main strands (i.e., components): language, literacy, and literature. Each strand is divided further into substrands, and each substrand is used to organise a list of content descriptions: specific English understandings or skills that teachers should teach and assess in each year of primary school (see Figure 1.2).

The three strands of the Australian Curriculum: English

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The language strand is concerned with the nuts and bolts of the English language itself. It relates to ‘the patterns and purposes of English usage, including spelling, grammar, and punctuation at the levels of the word, sentence, and extended text, and the connections between these levels’ (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], n.d., para. 6). It also promotes learning about the individual sounds (phonemes) and letters (graphemes) of English, and how the different combinations of these create spoken and written words. Like the tools that

Figure 1.2 s tructure of the Australian Curriculum: English

fill a builder’s toolbox, the many aspects of language are available to users of English to accomplish infinite communicative purposes.

The literacy strand is concerned with the practical usage of language, especially in the interpretation and creation of different text forms through speaking, listening, reading, writing, viewing, and creating. ‘The literacy strand aims to develop students’ ability to interpret and create texts with appropriateness, accuracy, confidence, fluency, and efficacy for learning in and out of school, and for participating in Australian life more generally’ (ACARA, n.d., para. 11). Like the practices of a builder as he or she uses tools from their toolbox, the practices of literacy describe how people use language in many ways for many purposes.

The literature strand is concerned with how language users respond to, appreciate, understand, and create texts through literate practices. Forms of literature include ‘short stories, novels, poetry, prose, plays, film, and multimodal texts, in spoken, print, and digital/online forms’ (ACARA, n.d., para. 8). The literature strand involves the study of spoken, written, visual, multimodal, and digital literary texts of aesthetic, personal, social, and cultural value. Like the buildings explored and created by builders, literature is explored and created by language users through literate practices.

English as a coherent and cumulative body of knowledge

The writers of the Australian Curriculum: English have conceptualised English as a coherent and cumulative body of knowledge, not unlike how mathematics and science have been presented traditionally. Previous school curricula often fragmented English into bits and pieces of knowledge to be learnt, rather than understanding it as a number of coherent and interconnected concepts that are introduced at a basic level in the first year of primary school and that become more complex, sophisticated, and abstract across the primary school years. The Australian Curriculum: English has been successful in intensifying the continuity of English learning across the school years, so that it is seen as a growing and cumulative body of knowledge (Freebody, 2010).

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An example of this can be seen within the literature strand, which has a substrand named responding to literature. The following content description is listed within this substrand at the Year 1 level:

Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students’ own experiences (ACELT1582).

Throughout the primary school years, this content description is revisited and made more complex to match students’ developing control and understanding of literary features. In Year 6, the same content description has become:

Identify and explain how choices in language, for example modality, emphasis, repetition, and metaphor, influence personal response to different texts (ACELT1615).

In each content description, students are called to respond personally to literature, yet the Year 6 description requires more specialised knowledge of language choices and a more generalised perspective on how texts influence people’s personal responses in different ways. This is typically how the Australian Curriculum: English guides teachers and students to teach and learn about English in more complex ways over time, with central ideas returned to throughout the school years as part of a coherent and cumulative body of knowledge.

An introduction to explicit instruction

Primary school teachers should teach English using evidence-based pedagogical approaches. This part of the chapter introduces explicit instruction: a teaching approach well-supported by over five decades of research as an effective way to teach new skills and cognitive strategies (e.g., Graham et al., 2012; Rosenshine, 2009; Shanahan et al., 2010). Explicit instruction is the main pedagogical approach that underpins the teaching and learning experiences outlined in the chapters of this text.

What is explicit instruction?

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At its simplest, explicit instruction means teaching important concepts and skills directly and clearly rather than expecting students to learn them incidentally (Spear-Swerling, 2018). The teacher decides the sequence of learning opportunities based on student needs and curriculum requirements. The teacher also leads the lesson, explaining new concepts clearly (Ashman, 2018). Explicit teaching involves telling students directly what they will be learning and what they need to do to be successful.

Key components of explicit instruction

In a review of research, Hughes and colleagues (2017) identified five essential components of explicit instruction. These were: (1) breaking down a target skill

or strategy into chunks; (2) modelling with think-alouds how a proficient reader or writer uses the skill or strategy; (3) scaffolding and supporting students as they develop the skill or strategy; (4) posing frequent questions and offering affirmative feedback; and (5) providing opportunities for students to practise the skill or strategy independently (see Figure 1.3). These components are now unpacked in turn.

Figure 1.3 Fiv e components of explicit instruction

1. Breaking down new skills into chunks

2. Modelling new skills with think-alouds

3. Scaffolding students to learn new skills

4. Posing questions with affirmative feedback

5. Providing opportunities for independent practice

Breaking down the target skill or strategy into chunks

Teachers make the teaching of complex skills and strategies explicit when they break them down into chunks that are taught in a step-by-step manner (Rupley et al., 2009). Such a process requires the teacher to have a deep understanding of the skill or strategy and how it can be broken down as part of the planning process. Teaching skills and strategies in this way enhances student learning since they only focus on a limited amount of new information at a time, which works within the constraints of their working memory (Ashman, 2018). As an example, the teacher might break down the complex skill of narrative writing into a sequence of lessons about the genre’s typical stages, the phases that make up the stages, the use of language features that help to achieve the purpose of the genre, and so on. Once students have mastered a chunk of the skill or strategy, they move onto another, often with the previously taught and new chunks practised cumulatively, so that all chunks are eventually mastered and synthesised (Swanson & Deshler, 2003).

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Modelling with think-alouds practices of proficient readers or writers

Explicit instruction involves teachers modelling how proficient readers and writers use skills or cognitive strategies as part of reading or writing situations. Thinking aloud during this modelling is critical since it makes physical actions and thought processes explicit, rather than being hidden from students (Rosenshine, 2001). As

stated by Rupley et al. (2009), ‘think-alouds are intended to help students get inside the teacher’s mind and begin to understand what strategies they can use when doing similar tasks’ (p. 129). Hughes et al. (2017) stressed that modelling is more effective when teachers consistently use words that are understood by students during lessons. Students can learn new ideas without clear modelling, but this will make it more challenging for them to apply their learning in practical ways, such as engaging in deep readings of texts or making particular language choices in their writing.

Scaffolding and supporting students as they develop the target skill or strategy

Scaffolding is an essential feature of explicit instruction. Building on Lev Vygotsky’s seminal theory of learning (i.e., social constructivism), Jerome Bruner (1978) coined the term scaffolding to describe the process of offering students most support when they first develop a new understanding and gradually reducing this support as students become more autonomous. In explicit instruction, the teacher gradually releases responsibility for the students to use a target skill or strategy, providing affirmative feedback to guide their practice (Reutzel et al., 2014). Like the scaffolding around a new building, this support helps bridge the gap between students’ existing skills and the intended practice modelled by the teacher (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992). Typically, explicit instruction begins with a teacherfocused modelling stage, followed by a joint practice stage between the teacher and students, and an independent practice stage where students work without the teacher’s direct guidance. While students are supported throughout these stages, most scaffolding occurs in the joint practice stage. More detailed explanation about these stages is provided in the reading and writing overview chapters (i.e., Chapters 2 and 10).

Posing frequent questions and offering affirmative feedback

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When teachers provide frequent questioning and affirmative feedback, this encourages students to engage actively in a learning experience while maximising the time spent attending to the work at hand (Rupley et al., 2009). Teaching in this way positions students to be involved in the learning experience and accountable for their actions. They are less able to coast since they may be called upon at any time to contribute to the discussion (Mesmer & Griffith, 2005). Through constant teacher-student interactions, the teacher is able to track student engagement and understanding (Heward & Wood, 2013). If students appear disengaged or confused, the teacher can adjust their instruction, reteaching or remodelling the target skill or strategy, and assisting students to apply the new learning meaningfully.

Providing opportunities for independent practice

Clear teacher modelling, think-alouds, scaffolding, questioning, and affirmative feedback are important practices that help students understand the cognitive, social, and physical processes involved in literate practices like speaking, listening, reading, writing, viewing, and creating. Students are unlikely to develop deep understandings, however, without opportunities to practise the skill or strategy on their own (Archer & Hughes, 2011). Including independent tasks after carefully structured explicit teaching enables students to retain and generalise new or existing skills and knowledge (Hattie et al., 1997). Such tasks are more successful when they follow teaching with sufficient guidance by the teacher, since students are less likely to practise errors or misconceptions (Rosenshine, 2001). In primary English teaching, it is crucial that students can apply their learning about language, literacy, or literature concepts without direct assistance from the teacher.

Summary

Explicit instruction ‘does not leave anything to chance and does not make assumptions about skills and knowledge that children will acquire on their own’ (Torgesen, 2004, p. 363). In this way, teaching explicitly has been described as the ethical approach for teachers since it is often not possible to know which students will or will not struggle to develop crucial literacy skills without a high degree of teacher guidance and support (Buckingham & Castles, 2019). Does this mean everything in English education should be taught explicitly? As a number of experts have argued, not everything will need to be taught in this highly structured manner (Purcell-Gates et al., 2007; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986). But explicit instruction using frameworks like those outlined in the reading and writing overview chapters of this text (Chapters 2 and 10) will enable effective student learning on the many occasions when teachers wish to teach students new English skills, strategies, and understandings.

Outline of this book’s design and structure

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Following the travel guide metaphor, Teaching and Learning Primary English has been organised into three main sections, referred to as regions. Like broad regions on a map, the three regions are the main elements of English education explored in the book, namely: reading, writing, and children’s literature. Each region comprises multiple chapters, referred to as destinations. Like travel destinations, the destinations are critically important aspects of each region for teachers of English.

The destinations for each region are presented in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Regions and destinations in Teaching and Learning

7.

9.

If travel guides only listed names of regions and destinations, this information would not be specific enough to help travellers plan detailed visits and get to know places intimately. For this reason, each destination in this text explains several key aspects known as points of interest. Common points of interest in each destination include:

1 Definitions of key theoretical ideas and concepts

2 An outline of typical development or learning across the primary school years

3 Key teaching approaches in early, middle, and upper primary school

4 Key assessment approaches

5 Suggested children’s literature to support teaching and learning

6 Example lesson plan overviews. The text’s design, with regions, destinations, and points of interest, is depicted in Figure 1.4.

Regions (Sections)

• e.g., The teaching of reading

Destinations (Chapters)

• e.g., Comprehension

Points of interest (Aspects)

• e.g., What is comprehension, how does it develop, key teaching approaches, etc.

Each destination in the three regions is set apart by a single-page introduction summarising key theoretical and practical concepts and outlining the major points of interests with associated page numbers. These pages offer concise summaries of the most important information in the upcoming chapters, directing readers to subsequent pages where comprehensive information can be found. More detail about the content of each region and destination is offered in the reading, writing, and children’s literature overview chapters at the start of each region.

Mentor texts

A common element that ties together the many destinations of this book is the notion of mentor texts. Mentor texts, which can be picturebooks, nursery rhymes, song lyrics, comics, information reports, or any other high-quality text form, are crucial resources English teachers use to promote literate practices. This book uses the following definition of mentor texts offered by the National Writing Project (2013):

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Mentor texts are pieces of literature that you—both teacher and student— can return to and reread for many different purposes. They are texts to be studied and imitated. Mentor texts help students to take risks and be different writers tomorrow than they are today. It helps them to try out new strategies and formats. They should be texts that students can relate to and can even read independently or with some support (para. 3).

Mentor texts are used by primary school teachers as they model how proficient readers use various reading strategies and skills in reading lessons. They are selected and held up as examples of high-quality writing of any genre to be celebrated and emulated in writing lessons. And they are explored, analysed, interpreted, and

Figure 1.4 o verarching design of Teaching and Learning Primary English

appreciated in literature-focused lessons. Through its many destinations, this book introduces a wide variety of mentor texts that can be obtained to assist the teaching and learning of English.

As a final message for this introductory chapter, the editors wish you all the very best as you take your own personal journey through the complex and empowering world of Teaching and Learning Primary English.

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