High reliability Literacy Teaching Procedures: A
means of fostering literacy learning across the
curriculum.
John Munro
Adapted By Maria Rigopoulos
Students in late primary and secondary levels
are required to learn by reading expository
texts.
Also,
• There is an increased focus on self managed
and directed learning
• There is the need to access a range of
information sources.
Students who have difficulty converting
written information to knowledge are severely
disadvantaged.
They:• Are less able to access information.
• Have less opportunity to display what they
know in written ways
• They are less able to align what they know
about a topic on related written text on
subsequent occasions.
• Subject teachers are aware that successful
learning in their subject requires students to
read and to learn from this.
• They recognise literacy as an essential
vehicle for learning in their subject.
• John Munro worked with teachers in three
secondary colleges to develop an approach to
literacy enhancement that targets these
problems
He developed 7 literacy teaching procedures
called
High Reliability Literacy Teaching
Procedures (HRLTPs)
The procedures needed to meet a number of
criteria:
Enhance
Comprehension
Be included in the
regular teaching
program
Be implemented
on a whole school
basis
The 7 High Reliability Literacy
Procedures
1. Get knowledge ready – by organising and
recoding what students know about a topic
in verbal form.
Many students have difficulty learning to read because they
have difficulty linking what they know with the text or
others don’t have adequate basic text structures like
compare-contrast, cause and effect. So, before reading ,
readers have to be assisted to re-code non-verbal
knowledge into a verbal form.
We can get students knowledge ready by:
•
stimulating students existing knowledge by visualising what
they know about the topic
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn1a.wmv
•
organising what students know about a topic to a verbal
linguistic form.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn1bpt1.w
mv
•
•
•
Showing students a picture, a model or a demonstration and
asking them to interpret it
Talking about pictures in a text – saying what the picture shows
Describing in sentences pictorial information that accompanies
text students will read.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn1bpt2.w
mv
•
Suggesting key questions about a key picture in a text.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn1bpt3.w
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2. Learn 5 – 10 unfamiliar verbal concepts that relate
to the content to be covered in the lesson
Many students cannot read words accurately or automatically.
They also have corresponding difficulties with spelling. When
students learn the key concepts explicitly they are more likely
to understand the topic being read in class.
There are various procedures teachers can use to do this, have students:
• Pronounce, read and spell the key words in the text accurately
• Teaching word meanings directly
• Teaching students how to work out the meanings of unfamiliar words they
encounter in texts
• Developing students meaning making motors – building up a repertoire of
key vocabulary units.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn4.wmv
• Scanning a text - students articulating what the scan action means
• Select unfamiliar words, talk about their meanings and suggest
synonyms for those words
• Students suggesting reasons for doing a vocabulary activity and the
value it has for their learning.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacyt
olearn5.wmv
Using key words in sentences and suggesting synonyms for the key
words used
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacyt
olearn6.wmv
Brainstorm and suggest words that might be mentioned in a text.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacyt
olearn7.wmv
Spelling key words in a text
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/liter
acytolearn8.wmv
3. Read aloud short portions of relevant text
This is a key literacy teaching procedure which provides
students with auditory feedback for the text read. As well, it
can help students retain sentences in short term memory
and to use their oral language to reason about hat they
read.
5. Make and say questions that each sentence in
the text answers
This procedure focuses student attention on analysing the ideas in
the sentence in terms of its purpose and to link the sentence with
what they know. It extends their comprehension of the sentence
and encourages them to be active readers
By:
• Suggesting questions a text might answer
• Reading and paraphrasing questions that could be asked about a
text
• Using questions to help organise knowledge gained from a text
whist reading
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn2c.wmv
6. Summarise the text.
Summarising is the key aspect of reading. It helps readers
abstract the main ideas of a text. This is the knowledge they
add to what they already know.
4. Paraphrase each sentence in the text
Paraphrasing a sentence is one aspect of sentence
comprehension. It gives students the opportunity to learn to
link the new concepts , often in unfamiliar relationships and
to talk about the new ideas. It also helps readers to link the
new ideas with what they know. It teaches them ways of
talking about the ideas in the topic area and helps them retain
the related ideas in short term memory.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/lit
eracytolearn2b.wmv
7. Review and consolidate what has been read
by reading silently a summary text.
Students identify what they have learnt by reading and linking
the new knowledge with what they already know. The new
knowledge is structured in a ‘linguistic’ of ‘verbal way’ which
can be used in subsequent reading and writing activities.
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/assetman/sl/literacytolearn
10.wmv
The goals which are targeted explicitly through
this process are:
a. Students learn to build their personal set of reading
comprehension strategies that they can use
spontaneously and selectively.
b. Students improve knowledge of spelling and letter
patterns, of sentence and paragraph structures and
of networks of concepts