Literacy Progress Units (LPUs)
What are they?
 Literacy competence and confidence is a key factor for secondary
students in enjoying access to, and success in, the wider curriculum.
 LPUs are based on the principle that all students on L3 should aspire to L4
by the end of Y7.
 Students' degree of improvement will be measured by progress tests at
the end of Y7
 Many students at L3 have a good grasp of basic skills, but lack confidence
in themselves as learners
 LPUs build on the proven practice in primary strategy, where the
Additional Literacy Support (ALS) materials.
 LPUs are:
Tightly structured
Fast paced
Active learning
18 sessions, each of 20 minutes
A powerful set of teaching materials
What do they cover?
There are six LPUs:

Writing Organisation (planning, organising and shaping writing effectively at
words, sentence and text level)

Sentences (using a range of sentence structures effectively and punctuating
them usefully)

Information retrieval (locating, extracting and evaluating information from a
range of non-literary resources)

Reading between the lines (using inference and deduction to interpret literary
texts)

Phonics (applying knowledge of phonics to spell words correctly in their own
writing)

Spelling (making use of spelling rules and conventions and having strategies to
improve their own spelling)
Who delivers them?
 They are delivered by 'tutors', who could be:
Teachers from across the curriculum
Members of the Senior Management Team
Teaching Assistants
English Teachers
Librarians
LITERACY PROGRESS UNITS - FACTS AND MYTHS
WHAT THEY ARE:
Focused, explicit, teaching of strategies
to enable students to access the
secondary curriculum
Intensive, short burst teaching for a finite
period

WHAT THEY AREN'T:
Mechanical coverage of a fixed sequence
of content

A state of permanent catch-up

Pacy, interactive, small group teaching


Little and often teaching and reinforcing
of skills for targeted students at L3
Literacy development for students
working just below national expectations
(at L3)
Cross-curricular commitment to literacy
development
Complementary and additional to the
English curriculum
An opportunity for schools to use the
resources selectively, according to
assessed needs. (Some students at L4
could also benefit from some of the units)
A teaching and learning programme that
is integral to raising standards

One-to-one SEN remediation at a slower
pace
A programme of 'bottom set' work








A replacement for existing SEN and
Faculty provision for students with IEPs

The sole responsibility of one department
(English or SEN)
A substitute English curriculum,
competing for English curricular time
A 'sausage machine' where ALL the
students at L3 do ALL the units



Something that is going to go away!
Where do we stand at present?
 The information and training on LPUs was received too late to be able to
fully implement them during 2001/2002.
 Most schools are expecting to trial one or two LPUs in the coming year
 In the spring of 2002, schools will need to carefully consider where and
when to deliver the units in the new academic year, and who will deliver
them.