NLS Framework for teaching

Introduction: NLS Framework for teaching

Purpose of the Framework

The Framework for teaching sets out teaching objectives for Reception to Year 6 to enable pupils to become fully literate. It also gives guidance on the Literacy Hour in which this teaching will take place. Detailed guidance on the implementation of the hour will be sent to schools in the summer term (1998). This document is mainly intended for day-to-day reference for classroom teachers to ensure that they have appropriately high expectations of their pupils, understand how their pupils will progress through the years at primary school and to help them offer a balance between reading and writing and different kinds of texts.

Good school leadership is vital for teachers to be successful in the classroom. This Framework will be an important tool for headteachers and governors as they manage the improvement of literacy standards, particularly in developing a whole school plan for the teaching and learning of literacy, for monitoring progress and for staff development. Parents may also be interested to read the Framework.

This Framework and the training that will be provided in the National Literacy Strategy are based on the experience of the National Literacy Project. The Literacy Task Force found widespread support for the Project's approach to teaching literacy and its success in raising standards. Its proposals sought to spread this good practice as widely as possible.

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What is literacy?

Literacy unites the important skills of reading and writing. It also involves speaking and listening which, although they are not separately identified in the Framework, are an essential part of it. Good oral work enhances pupils' understanding of language in both oral and written forms and of the way language can be used to communicate. It is also an important part of the process through which pupils read and compose texts.

Thus the Framework covers the statutory requirements for reading and writing in the National Curriculum for English and contributes substantially to the development of speaking and listening. It is also relevant to teaching across the whole of the National Curriculum. Skills, especially those that focus on reading and writing non-fiction texts, should be linked to and applied in every subject.

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Literate primary pupils should:

read and write with confidence, fluency and understanding;
be able to orchestrate a full range of reading cues (phonic, graphic, syntactic, contextual) to monitor their reading and correct their own mistakes;
understand the sound and spelling system and use this to read and spell accurately;
have fluent and legible handwriting;
have an interest in words and their meanings and a growing vocabulary;
know, understand and be able to write in a range of genres in fiction and poetry, and understand and be familiar with some of the ways in which narratives are structured through basic literacy ideas of setting, character and plot;
understand, use and be able to write a range of non-fiction texts;
plan, draft, revise and edit their own writing;
have a suitable technical vocabulary through which to understand and discuss their reading and writing;
be interested in books, read with enjoyment and evaluate and justify their preferences;
through reading and writing, develop their powers of imagination, inventiveness and critical awareness.

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Reading

All teachers know that pupils become successful readers by learning to use a range of strategies to get at the meaning of a text. This principle is at the heart of the National Curriculum for English and has formed the basis of successful literacy teaching for many years. The range of strategies can be depicted as a series of searchlights, each of which sheds light on the text. Successful readers use as many of these strategies as possible.

phonic (sound and spelling)
knowledge of context
grammatical knowledge
word recognition and graphic knowledge

Most teachers know about all these, but have often been over-cautious about the teaching of phonics - sounds and spelling. It is vital that pupils are taught to use these word level strategies effectively. Research evidence shows that pupils do not learn to distinguish between the different sounds of words simply by being exposed to books. They need to be taught to do this. When they begin to read, most pupils tend to see words as images, with a particular shape and pattern. They tend not to understand that words are made up of letters used in particular combinations that correspond with spoken sounds. It is essential that pupils are taught these basic decoding and spelling skills from the onset.

When pupils read familiar and predictable texts, they can easily become over-reliant on their knowledge of context and grammar. They may pay too little attention to how words sound and how they are spelt. But if pupils cannot decode individual words through their knowledge of sounds and spellings, they find it difficult to get at the meanings of more complex, less familiar texts. They are likely to have problems in dealing with more extended texts and information books used across the curriculum at Key Stage 2, and with spelling. As they learn these basic decoding skills they should also be taught to check their reading for sense by reference to the grammar and meaning of the text. This helps them to identify and correct their reading errors. At Key Stage 1, there should be a strong and systematic emphasis on the teaching of phonics and other word level skills.

Pupils should be taught to:

discriminate between the separate sounds in words;
learn the letters and letter combinations most commonly used to spell those sounds;
read words by sounding out and blending their separate parts;
write words by combining the spelling patterns of their sounds.

In the early stages, pupils should have a carefully balanced programme of guided reading from books of graded difficulty, matched to their independent reading levels. These guided reading books should have a cumulative vocabulary, sensible grammatical structure and a lively and interesting content. Through shared reading, pupils should also be given a rich experience of more challenging texts.

This Framework organises teaching objectives at three different levels: word, sentence and text. This underlines the importance of teaching pupils to use the full range of searchlights - to tackle texts from individual words upwards and from the text downwards. While all searchlights are important, the balance between them should vary at different stages of learning to read.

As pupils gain fluency the forms of teaching should shift to emphasise advanced reading and composition skills at text level. The sequence needs to be right for effective teaching and learning of reading.

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Writing

Writing is closely related to reading - the two activities reinforce each other. This Framework includes a wide range of reading and ensures that pupils cover a similar range of writing. Both reading and writing uses work at word, sentence and text levels. Each of the searchlights used for reading also needs to be used in writing. The context of pupils' reading, i.e. the texts, gives structures, themes and purposes for much of their writing, while the focused teaching of word and sentence level skills contributes to the organisation and accuracy of their writing. Pupils need to understand from an early stage that much of their writing will be read by other people and therefore needs to be accurate, legible and set out in an appropriate way. They need to see the writing process being modelled by the teacher and they should take part regularly in composing, spelling and handwriting activities with the class as a whole and as a member of a smaller group.

As with reading, it is important that pupils learn to write independently from an early stage. During Key Stage 1 the teaching of phonics, spelling and writing complements this process and should be used systematically to support writing and to build up accuracy and speed. It is essential that pupils are taught correct letter formation from the outset and that errors are picked up and corrected early so that they do not hamper pupils' progress. Through Key Stage 2, there is a progressive emphasis on the skills of planning, drafting, revising, proof-reading and the presentation of writing. The range of reading and writing increases and, with it, the need for pupils to understand a wider variety of texts, their organisation and purposes. Of course, pupils also need to continue to work on autonomous strategies for spelling and correcting their own mistakes.

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