Teachers and practitioners need to plan opportunities across the curriculum to enhance children's literacy and communication skills.

In order to plan their literacy teaching, teachers and practitioners should start from a thorough knowledge of the children's existing literacy knowledge, skills and understanding, and be clear about the learning outcomes they intend children to achieve. As well as thorough assessment within each year as children move through the primary phase, teachers will build on knowledge and skills gained from assessments in the previous stage of learning: in Key Stage 1 building on the information from the Foundation Stage Profile and in Key Stage 2 moving forward from the end of Key Stage 1 assessments into the next phase of learning.

In planning, it will be important to make connections between the 12 strands of the Framework, because they feed into each other and support well-rounded language development. As the Independent review of the teaching of early reading makes clear, the first steps in literacy are supported by children's experience of speaking and listening. Children are more confident with words, expressions, ideas and different types of language if they have experienced them in conversation first. Ideas which have been orally rehearsed are better articulated on paper, and clear, confident speakers find it easier to hear and say the sounds in words when they first start to read and write. Success in writing is partly determined by the experience of reading. The child who is familiar with the conventions of different text types holds valuable information for composing their own texts. Children who have heard many stories, for example, will internalise the conventions and draw on them in their own writing. Indeed, we hope and expect children will learn from the best writers when we introduce them to literature. Different types of literacy such as explanation, information and argument are found in all the domains of reading, writing, speaking and listening. The framework offers progression through the years, but it is the teacher who binds the strands together for optimum effect in the teaching plan, using texts and topics which are interesting and appropriate for the class.

All subjects of the curriculum are rich sources for learning new vocabulary and for developing speaking, listening, reading and writing. Literacy teaching across the curriculum:

• broadens and enhances children's command of literacy skills by providing them with a range of different contexts in which to use and practise these skills
• embeds the teaching of the literacy skills which are central to the language of a particular subject within that subject
• enhances the learning of the subject itself and the attitudes of children towards that learning.

Securing integrated literacy planning

In order to secure integrated literacy planning, practitioners and teachers need to:

• familiarise themselves with the specific year group planning pages on the electronic Framework, particularly the guidance on the organisation of learning into blocks and units, incorporating speaking, listening, reading and writing into extended units of learning
• familiarise themselves with the guidance and planning overviews and exemplifications offered on the electronic Framework and decide how to use these within a whole-school approach
• review their current literacy planning to make sure that speaking, listening, reading and writing are integrated in their planning, both within discrete literacy teaching and across the curriculum
• identify any areas or gaps in current planning which require attention and ensure that there are effective arrangements in place for monitoring the implementation of their plans
• make sure the literacy curriculum promotes both discrete teaching within subjects and extends literacy learning across subjects.

Planning for inclusion

The National Curriculum (2000) Statutory Inclusion Statement sets out three key principles essential to planning and teaching:

• setting suitable learning challenges
• responding to pupils' diverse learning needs
• overcoming potential barriers to learning and assessment for individuals and groups of pupils.

These principles highlight the importance of settings and schools planning literacy teaching in order to meet the needs of all children. Planning should also ensure that the needs of children within specific groups, such as those with special educational needs, gifted and talented children and EAL (English as an additional language) learners, are addressed in full. Planning for inclusion should be an integral part of a wider, coherent approach to effective literacy planning.

The electronic format of the Framework for literacy and mathematics provides an interactive facility which enables teachers and practitioners to plan for differentiated support to match children's learning needs. Guidance on planning for inclusion is in the library and planning sections of the electronic Framework which, in their turn link directly to a range of support materials as well as to resources available on the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority www.qca.org.uk.

The interactivity offered by the electronic Framework enables the exemplar teaching units to be amended to support differentiation for groups and individuals. This means a unit can be selected and the learning objectives and content edited to produce a personalised unit for any age and ability range of learners.

The electronic Framework supports teachers in compiling medium-term and short-term plans for teaching literacy, enabling them to do the following.

• Identify learning objectives across the 12 strands and group them together into a cohesive unit of teaching. For example, teachers can identify learning objectives from strands 1 and 2 of the speaking and listening strands and add in objectives from strands 5 and 6 to secure integrated planning across speaking and listening, word recognition and spelling.
• Amend and develop their planned literacy units in the light of their own specific contexts and priorities.
• Plan the word-level and sentence-level work they will need to address in discrete teaching and in the context of reading and writing across the curriculum in order to secure end-of-year expectations.

Some examples of the literacy unit plans use the context of different subjects to demonstrate how to strengthen links between literacy and the broad curriculum. It is essential, for children to secure the learning that has taken place in literacy, that they are supported in applying their literacy knowledge and skills into their work across the curriculum.

If teachers wish to construct alternative literacy units to the examples given within the renewed Framework, the following principles may be helpful. Each planned unit should do the following.

• Cover the development of speaking and listening, reading and writing.
  Lead to learning at a challenging pace towards the end-of-year expectations or beyond.
• Have regular teaching at word-level and sentence-level embedded within it, or identified as discrete teaching alongside it, to ensure children achieve these critical learning objectives in a coherent and progressive way.
• Follow and build upon the teaching sequence, from reading into writing and developing comprehension.
• Fully integrate the appropriate use of ICT opportunities to develop key aspects of learning and assessment opportunities. The planning should consider opportunities for literacy learning both within dedicated literacy teaching time and also across the whole curriculum.
• Involve a wide variety of enjoyable and engaging learning opportunities, related to children's experience, building on previous learning and therefore appropriately personalised.
• Identify the particular needs of children working below or significantly below age-related expectations and the needs of gifted and talented children working significantly above those expectations and plan to meet these needs.