Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies

Literacy to Learn: Getting students knowledge ready for literacy learning

Literacy to Learn 1A - Transcript

Voiceover: In the early phases of reading a text, readers try to link what they know with what they believe is the topic of the text. We call this ‘Getting your knowledge ready’, ‘orienting what you know’ or ‘using your existing knowledge’.

Voiceover: Readers do this because it helps to make the text easier to understand. When readers are encouraged to ‘get their knowledge ready’, they’re more able to link what they know with the topic that they’re learning. They can see that what they know is relevant and valued by the teacher. All learning and teaching begins with what the students know.

Voiceover: There are different ways in which teachers can lead a group of students to do this; one way is for the student s to stimulate their relevant experiential knowledge. This is what they visualise about the topic.

Voiceover: Let’s look first at Vivian introducing a teaching session on whales.

Voiceover: She asks the class to visualise what they know about whales, and then collects these images.

Teacher: Picture in your minds, what whales look like, I’m sure you’ve seen them either on TV or in books or on posters. Okay? Just picture whales in your mind and tell me; what do you know whales look like?

Student: Whales are big.

Teacher: Very good. Yes, they’re big.

Student: Whales are dark blue.

Teacher: Whales are dark blue. Yes.

Student: Whales live in the ocean.

Teacher: Very good.