Language and Literacy Curriculum
Overarching Mission
Language is at the heart of all pupils’ learning. Through language students receive much of their knowledge and acquire many of their skills. Language enables pupils both to communicate with others effectively for a variety of purposes and to examine their own and others experiences, feelings, and ideas. Well-developed language skills are essential for the life-long learning required to live and to work in the changing world. Language is central to intellectual, emotional and social development therefore opportunities to develop language are provided in every component of the curriculum. The components of our language and literacy program are reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Program Goals
Students will:
- Read and write with confidence, fluency, understanding and enjoyment.
- Be effective communicators through speaking and listening.
- Be given the opportunity to develop their reading and writing skills in all curriculum areas.
- Through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.
- Be interested in books, read with enjoyment and evaluate and justify their preferences.
- Be able to orchestrate a full range of reading cues (phonic, graphic, syntactic and contextual) to monitor their reading and correct their own mistakes.
- Have fluent and legible handwriting.
- Know, understand and be able to write with enthusiasm in a range of genres in fiction and poetry, understand and be familiar with some of the ways in which narratives are structured through basic literary ideas of setting, character and plot.
- Understand, use and be able to write with enthusiasm a range of non-fiction texts, including research
- Plan, draft, revise and edit their writing.
- Have a suitable technical vocabulary through which to understand and discuss their reading and writing.
Methodology
Instruction of Language and Literacy is guided by three principles of learning.
These are:
- Learning requires the active participation of the student.
- People learn in a variety of ways and at different rates.
- Learning is both an individual and a group process.
Language is fundamental to thinking, learning and communicating with all
cultures. The skilled use of language is associated with many opportunities
in life, including further education, work and social interaction. As students
come to understand language more fully, they are able to enjoy the benefits
and pleasure of language in all its forms – from reading and writing,
literature, theater, public speaking film and other media.
In the past twenty or so years educators have made a gradual change to a
much more comprehensive view of how children become literate. In the past
it was accepted that children learn to read in a series of textbooks (readers),
which were specially written for the purpose. The research on literacy development
shows that children learn to read more effectively when they encounter a
wide variety of print, are given personal help in learning to read print,
and are supported in their development in reading skills. Current research
also shows that writing development should be emphasized in conjunction
with reading development. In fact children learn to read as they read to
write; writing becomes a central part of learning to read, just as reading
is a central part of becoming an interesting and effective writer.
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