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EEF - Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools

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EEF - Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools

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Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools | EEF (educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk)

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this guidance report aims to help secondary schools improve literacy in all subject areas. it provides seven recommendations related to reading

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vocabulary development and supporting struggling students. throughout the report

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recommendations emphasise the importance of disciplinary literacy.  disciplinary literacy is an approach to improving literacy across the curriculum. it recognises that literacy skills are both general and subject specific

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emphasising the value of supporting teachers in every subject to teach students how to read

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write and communicate effectively in their subjects.  this guidance challenges the notion that literacy in secondary school is solely the preserve of english teachers

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or literacy coordinators. the emphasis on disciplinary literacy makes clear that every teacher communicates their subject through academic language

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speaking and listening are at the heart of knowing and doing science

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and every other subject in secondary school.

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Seven recommendations related to reading, writing, talk, vocabulary development and supporting struggling students

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National Literacy Trust - What is Disciplinary Literacy?

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National Literacy Trust - What is Disciplinary Literacy?

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What_is_disciplinary_literacy_Trainer_Master_with_Notes__2.pptx (live.com)

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Literacy is dead…long live ‘disciplinary literacy’! (theconfidentteacher.com)

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We know a huge amount about literacy. For decades, teachers have toiled over familiar reading issues, spelling setbacks and grammar grievances. Too often, expertise leaves the classroom, evidence falls away, and under the pressure of an ever-changing curriculum schools crash into the usual literacy barriers.

Over 5 years ago, 'Don't Call It Literacy!' by Geoff Barton, captured the crucial point: our very conception of literacy in schools is often flawed. By viewing literacy as a bolt-on 'extra', rather than integral to every facet of successful learning, we fall prey to an industry of workload-inducing gimmicks, quick-fix interventions.

In secondary schools we are prone to shoe-horning reading, writing, talk and the essentials of academic communication - what we label 'literacy' - into programmes of ' literacy across the curriculum'. Well-meaning though they are, they are often viewed with scepticism and the muffled complaint: 'but how is this relevant to science, or music, or art, or maths?' Our generic literacy policies can smear a little lipstick onto our haphazard practice, but they invariably make little impact.

In speaking to primary school teachers, the common message is that teachers spent so much time crashing from one set of assessment demands to another, that there is too little time given over to curriculum design, planning and training on how children meaningfully read, write, or talk to learn over time.

Bridging the 'reading gap'

Then, at the point of transition between primary and secondary school, we can too easily miss the crucial 'reading gap'. We know that children face a significant challenge moving up to 'big school', but the literacy demands - the type of text a child is expected to read in particular - can change considerably. In primary school much of the curriculum is enacted in topics, with cross-curricular links being the norm, but then in secondary school the expectation shifts and narrows into discrete subject domains. These differences lead to different ways of reading and even thinking.

The very language of secondary school subjects shifts in complexity and even successful readers from primary school can run-aground if their subject knowledge is lacking. I am an unashamedly a huge fiction lover, but too often, for young children, "non-fiction materials are treated as unpleasant and boorish intruders into the otherwise serene, romantic kingdom of plot, character, and author's viewpoint." (Venezky, 1982, p. 113) Via Tim Shanahan. Children can read a steady diet of fiction, but then in secondary school, difficult non-fiction reading becomes the essential staple of a literate and successful student.

In short, literacy across the curriculum is not simply just hard to enact, it is hard to define beyond a few visible approaches to whole-school spelling and 'literacy marking'. The beleaguered literacy coordinator is like Sisyphus, pushing the proverbial rock up and down the mountain. Rarely do they have the time and resource to offer teachers specific solutions of reading, writing and talking like a scientist, a historian, a musician or a geographer.

The solution of 'disciplinary literacy'

The approach to generic 'literacy across the curriculum' can and should be supported, or even entirely supplanted by a focus on 'disciplinary literacy'. So what is ' disciplinary literacy' exactly? US expert, Tim Shanahan, puts it very clearly in his blog, 'Disciplinary Literacy: The Basics':

"Disciplinary literacy is based upon the idea that literacy and text are specialized, and even unique, across the disciplines. Historians engage in very different approaches to reading than mathematicians do, for instance. Similarly, even those who know little about math or literature can easily distinguish as science text from a literary one... Cyndie Shanahan and I studied chemists and learned the key information that they looked for when reading chemistry text and some of the techniques they used for making sense of that information. They even provided us with cogent explanations of why their approaches were beneficial, given the purposes of their inquiry and the nature of their texts. We turned that into a method that chemistry students could use to summarize information in a chemistry-centric way. Some "scholars" decided such charting made disciplinary literacy the same as content area reading (since it often recommends charts, too), ignoring that the categories of disciplinary-specific information were the essential element, and not the piece of paper on which the kids were recording the information (Dunkerly-Bean & Bean, 2017).

Of course, the issues with implementing 'disciplinary literacy' are not new at all. Too often, there is too little expert knowledge of both the 'what' and the ' how'. It looks a bit like good teaching, but it can prove difficult to put it clearly into words and actions for every teacher.

In secondary schools, this can prove a dearth of knowledge and strategies regarding applying 'disciplinary literacy', despite a wealth of subject specific expertise. In primary school, due to the general demands of the curriculum, we see that domain expertise in many subjects can prove lacking.

There is no quick fix here, but we can make a start. By better understanding the limitations of 'literacy across the curriculum', whilst learning more about 'disciplinary literacy', we offer teachers and students a more nuanced - and hopefully - more effective approach to the challenges of developing literacy in schools.

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Literacy is dead...long live 'disciplinary literacy'!

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''We know too much to say we know too little, and we know too little to say that we know enough. Indeed, language is difficult to put into words.'' Baumann, J. F. & Kameenui, E. J. (1991). 'Research on vocabulary instruction: Ode to Voltaire' We know a huge amount about literacy.

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Literacy, Curriculum and Teaching (ruth-ashbee.com)

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Everyone agrees literacy is A Good Thing, but I've struggled to be able to think clearly about it. I've just not been able to think of literacy as an object, a cohesive thing like "science" or "a schema" or even "an ability." It seems slippery, shape-shifty.

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5 Vocabulary Teaching Myths (theconfidentteacher.com)

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Words are all around us. They are legion, ubiquitous and omnipresent in our daily lives. They live in families, possess histories, slide and break into parts, and connect across worlds, separating and connecting us. And yet, curiously, few of us know how we acquire them, learn them, connect them, and teach them best.

It was my condition of relative ignorance - as an English teacher no less - that prompted a deep exploration of words. Curious about their roots, their past, their subject-specific uniqueness, I piled into the world of words and how we may best teach them. Along the way I learnt important myths about vocabulary development and explicit vocabulary instruction that needed busting:
Myth 1: 'We just grow our vocabulary simply by being at school - it doesn't need teaching'
From soon after our birth, to the end of our days, our own personal word-hoard is growing, deepening and changing. Like most myths, there is some of truth in this statement. By attending school and going through the natural stages of language development, children acquire new vocabulary (at least 2000 to 3000 words a year by many estimates). We also know, however, that explicit vocabulary can prove a significant boost for vocabulary development.

Indeed, we need to get children undertaking lots of rich, academic talk, but this alone will prove insufficient. Children also need to read widely - learning the rare words found in fiction and non-fiction texts, but seldom used in our daily talk. Of course, it can be hard for a child to read more challenge texts if their vocabulary is limited. By combining academic talk, reading, as well as undertaking explicit vocabulary instruction, we take a deliberate and intentional approach to language development that benefits every child.
Myth 2: 'There are simply too many words to teach.'
One common reason for rejecting the explicit teaching of vocabulary is that there are simply too many words to teach. With at least three quarter of a million words in the English language (more if you add in scientific classifications) we simply cannot teach them all. A graphic analogy has labelled it "spitting in the ocean"! And yet, happily, if we explicitly teach children words daily, particularly reinforcing understanding as we read, pupils can learn up to four times as many word meanings for words they encounter. Children learn most of their vocabulary incidentally over time, through talk and independent reading, but explicitly being taught as few as 400 new words can offer up connections and understanding of countless thousands more.
Myth 3: 'I already teach vocabulary... using glossaries and dictionaries.'
Vocabulary pervades all learning in school, but the presence of academic words are so ubiquitous that busy teachers can assume we have taught words well, but the truth is pupils share a shallow understanding of such words. Not only that, some of our go-to resources simply don't work very well.

The trusty dictionary is always a useful tool for the classroom, but we should take care not to make assumptions. Using a dictionary successfully requires a lot of background knowledge. Given a word that they don't know that has multiple meanings, pupils will invariably defer to the first definition, or the shortest and simplest definition. Researchers have shown how the dictionary can be poorly utilised and how words in context of the sentence can be unhelpful or even misdirective. A glossary, stripped from lots of helpful exemplification can prove similarly limited. Don't get me started on the " you can just look it up" fallacy! Children need deep word knowledge for an effective web search, like most reading; indeed, our students need between 95% or even 98% word knowledge for reading comprehension.
Myth 4: 'I don't have time to explicitly teach vocabulary - I am too busy teaching Science.'
At every key stage and phase in schools we find teachers struggling to meet the demands of the curriculum. Faced with high-stakes tests in primary school, subjects like Science, Music or Geography can too easily be shunted to the margins. Then in secondary school, subject teachers feel burdened to cram masses of knowledge into the narrow parameters of available curriculum time.

We can too easily consider that teaching students the Science content or the History content sees vocabulary instruction as extraneous. The reality is that unlocking the language of our subject domains is essential to understanding, whether that is grasping the vocabulary of science, that of mathematics, the vocabulary of History, and more. Indeed, for most students, how literate you are - the breadth and depth of your vocabulary - correlates with your success in Science along with many other subject domains.

This great graphic by Oliver Caviglioli citing Neil Postman neatly summarises my point:
Myth 5: 'Isn't explicit vocabulary teaching just for those struggling 'word poor' students?'
Too often, vocabulary instruction is seen as a sticking plaster intervention to support those students who have English as an additional language, or who are struggling with reading difficulties. Now, we know that explicit vocabulary instruction is important for children with reading difficulties, or those who are at risk in this regard. Crucially though, paying close attention to words is beneficial for every child. The depth of knowledge offered by exploring vocabulary - their histories (etymology), parts (morphology), families, connections, synonyms and antonyms - can prove challenging, inspiring and motivating to the most advanced students as much as those who are struggling to access the academic language of the school curriculum.

You can find out more in my book, 'Closing the Vocabulary Gap', available on Amazon HERE and Routledge HERE. I also do 'Closing the Vocabulary Gap Masterclasses' for Teachology HERE (in May, June and December).

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Words are all around us. They are legion, ubiquitous and omnipresent in our daily lives. They live in families, possess histories, slide and break into parts, and connect across worlds, separating and connecting us. And yet, curiously, few of us know how we acquire them, learn them, connect them, and teach them best.

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Disciplinary Literacy - Recording of the… | Greenshaw Research School

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Disciplinary Literacy - Recording of the Webinar

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Word webs, Frayer Model and SEEC model - QoE Briefing 17.11.2022

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Word webs, Frayer Model and SEEC model - QoE Briefing 17.11.2022

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Bedrock Mapper: Linking Mapper to the classroom

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Bedrock Mapper: Linking Mapper to the classroom

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This means that on Mapper, learners gain (and keep!) new knowledge of Tier 2 and 3 subject-specific vocabulary alongside their subject content knowledge. Mapper ensures learners communicate like subject experts

However, ensuring this new knowledge is put into practice in the classroom involves linking the learning on Mapper to your in-person teaching.

In this blog, discover some of the ways Bedrock Mapper's learning sequence and algorithm supports teachers to bring their students' learning into the classroom, as well as tips and strategies you can use to implement your whole-school literacy strategy deeply and widely.

Using Mapper differs from subject to subject, depending on the unique requirements of your discipline and your learners. Due to this, Bedrock Mapper is flexible. There are lots of ways that Mapper can be used by learners to support your teaching and learning and ensure that every student in your classroom can confidently access the curriculum.

Pre-teaching vocabulary unlocks new texts and information by teaching subject-specific vocabulary before learners have encountered it. This means that learners are prepared for the texts they come across as they move through the curriculum, improving their reading comprehension and overall retention. When these words are encountered organically in texts, these encounters become high-quality exposures rather than a barrier to comprehension.

In order to pre-teach vocabulary, teachers may read ahead in the reading material set - such as case studies in Geography or exam questions in Maths - and identify the Tier 2 and Tier 3 language learners need explicit instruction for, and then provide it through a variety of pre-teaching strategies in the classroom. However, this puts the onus on teachers to identify the words learners will struggle with; it can be challenging to decipher which words a learner may not understand.

E.D. Hirsch: "To grasp the words on a page we have to know a lot of information that isn't set down on a page."

As well as this, when explicitly taught important vocabulary, not every learner will have the same initial level of mastery - teachers do not have the time to differentiate explicit vocabulary instruction for every learner in their classroom without help from digital literacy tools.

On Bedrock Mapper, rather than scouring textbooks for high-level vocabulary, teachers can add whole subjects into learners' lesson plans at the touch of a button. When learners do come to the lessons after completing their Mapper work, they have the prior knowledge of the Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary they need to access their lessons, increasing their comprehension. Over time, this boosts learners' confidence in their reading, writing and oral communication skills.

How can teachers ensure all learners know, understand and remember the subject-specific vocabulary of each curriculum area? In a class of 20 to 30, or even more, understanding each individual's confidence level is a time-consuming process that can feel insurmountable. How can teachers be sure that learners are equipped with the vocabulary they need for the exam hall, and for wider life?

Mapper's curriculum sequencing allows teachers to map their curriculum so that it works alongside teaching in the classroom. When learners encounter words on Mapper that have been taught in-lesson, teachers can use Mapper to assess understanding as a plenary activity or homework.

Mapper's self-marking vocabulary curriculum gives teachers powerful insight data. When learners complete work on Mapper, their progress is tracked over time, giving a pre-test and post-test score for each word. This allows teachers to access data that visualises the understanding, retention and mastery of new vocabulary. As well as this, school leaders can use this data to visualise the impact of disciplinary literacy strategies across their school.

On Bedrock Mapper, teachers can map their unique curriculum in a combination of three different ways. They can:

Use Bedrock Created Content

Personalise existing community content, or

Add their own content to the platform.

The control teachers have ensures that learners receive the highest quality curriculum content that is cohesive with classroom learning. For example, teachers can personalise content from the Bedrock Created Content area to add resources used in classroom lessons - geographical images from a school trip as part of the image quiz, or historical documents studied in class as a given example.

Linking classroom resources, such as case studies, documents and quotes, to subject-specific vocabulary on Bedrock Mapper helps to link the learning students complete in class and at home, encouraging seamless, consistent vocabulary improvement. As well as this, linking these resources dual-codes the learning students complete on Mapper, increasing retention and boosting confidence in reading, writing and oral communication.

Disciplinary literacy strategies encourage students to think, read and write like experts in any given subject. Not only does Bedrock Mapper equip learners with the knowledge to achieve this across the curriculum, but the extended written activities provide opportunity for learners to write like experts using their new vocabulary. This encourages learners to think deeply about the vocabulary they learn - the subject-specific vocabulary of a particular discipline is not just a tool for the exam hall, but a key that unlocks a student's ability to think like an expert both within school and beyond.

The written activities learners complete on Mapper are great examples to use when demonstrating strong writing, modelling an editing process, comparing vocabulary use in a sentence, etc. As well as this, they form a resource bank for learners to use when reflecting on their own work. Not only does this provide another high-quality encounter with new Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, but learners practise proofreading and editing their work in preparation for the exam hall. No matter the discipline, learners are expected to write at length about subject material, and Mapper's written activities are a fantastic opportunity to reflect on this as a class, identify misconceptions and improve learners' writing skills.

A great time to reflect on written work from Mapper would be during a 'Do Now' activity. 'Do Now' is a strategy from Teach Like a Champion where every lesson is started with a simple activity. Not only is the start of each lesson consistent every day, but reflecting on written tasks becomes an expectation, encouraging students to complete their Mapper work without much effort from you. Learners' vocabulary and content knowledge is activated at the start of every lesson, keeping learning through literacy at the forefront of students' minds.

Written work completed on Mapper can be found in the knowledge organiser report; this report is downloadable, allowing for easy transfer into your lesson planning.

Just as Mapper's pre-test reporting gives teachers an idea of learners' prior knowledge of vocabulary before they begin the lesson, activities learners complete after a classroom lesson help teachers identify misconceptions. Teachers across the curriculum can use the vocabulary insights report to inform the vocabulary they recap.

This approach is especially important when it comes to addressing the vocabulary gap, as learners from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to struggle and fall behind when encountering new vocabulary. The vocabulary insights report gives teachers visibility of which learners need additional support, ensuring every learner has the opportunity to thrive.

Whenever teachers at your school use the reporting on Mapper to influence their lesson plans, they link learning on Mapper to teaching in the classroom, creating a unified approach to disciplinary literacy.

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This means that on Mapper, learners gain (and keep!) new knowledge of Tier 2 and 3 subject-specific vocabulary alongside their subject content knowledge. Mapper ensures learners communicate like subject experts However, ensuring this new knowledge is put into practice in the classroom involves linking the learning on Mapper to your in-person teaching.

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Bedrock Mapper: How sequencing your vocabulary curriculum supports classroom teaching

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Bedrock Mapper: How sequencing your vocabulary curriculum supports classroom teaching

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Sequencing is a method of ordering learning; it allows teachers to plan which knowledge learners will encounter within a certain period of time. It forms part of a holistic approach to planning lessons, where knowledge is introduced and consolidated seamlessly.

"[Sequencing] gives [learners] the skills and the knowledge in the right order from Nursery to Year 6 within each subject." - Caroline Pudner, Cornerstones Education

In the classroom, this might look like planning homework tasks to reinforce taught knowledge, introducing new knowledge in meaningful chunks, or pre-teaching the vocabulary learners need to know for a new topic before the content is taught.

One aspect of learning that greatly benefits from a sequenced approach is your vocabulary curriculum - in every subject. Sequencing vocabulary can also support teaching overall. By sequencing vocabulary instruction, teachers can provide explicit instruction on Tier 2 and Tier 3 terms learners need to know to grasp a new concept or topic. This is crucial for overall attainment across the curriculum.

With the help of digital curriculum planning tools, such as Bedrock Mapper, teachers can customise the start and end date of set terms in their vocabulary curriculum.

The Ofsted framework of the 3 I's - Intent, Implementation and Impact - mentions sequencing as a crucial component of teaching with intent, involving addressing learners with the highest level of need and delivering differentiated, ambitious content for every student. To ensure that topics challenge learners while remaining accessible, sequencing and pre-teaching vocabulary is crucial.

In addition to this, sequencing vocabulary instruction allows teachers to interleave learning in a way time does not allow in the classroom. Vocabulary from one topic can be scheduled and recapped while another is taught, providing opportunities for revision and ensuring long-term retention. Thanks to sequencing, learning is constant for all topics even while one is being focused on in the classroom.

Pre-teaching is the strategy of introducing learners to the vocabulary or content knowledge of an upcoming topic before it is taught in the classroom. When content is pre-taught, learners enter the classroom with the skills they need for comprehension and understanding already in place, ready to be recapped and mastered as the topic is taught.

Here are some ways you can use Mapper 's sequencing functionality to pre-teach vocabulary and link it to your classroom teaching:

Introduce the vocabulary learners need to access a lesson before you have taught the content, giving them time to work through the new terms. Using start dates for new vocabulary allows you to pre-teach learners the vocabulary they need before the lesson begins, forging a link between classroom teaching and tech. As well as this, you can edit the written activities on premade Bedrock-created content to match your lesson plans, linking students' learning to the classroom.

Much like when incorporating optional end dates into pre-teaching, sequenced vocabulary can be used to assess understanding in a low-stakes way throughout learning. Teachers can use their personalised reporting to address misconceptions, identify areas to recap in class, provide targeted instruction for students who need additional scaffolding, and even reward learners who are deserving of praise - this ensures every learner in the class receives personalised attention for their learning.

Arranging formative assessments and observing improvement can be time consuming when done manually.

With Mapper, teachers can track progress over time and receive tangible data affirming the benefits of pre-teaching vocabulary alongside in-class lessons, which not only informs curriculum planning and strengthens buy-in for whole-school literacy. Every teacher in the school has equal visibility of the benefits of Tier 3 vocabulary instruction for their learners.

By sequencing their vocabulary curriculum to revisit content after the topic has been taught, Mapper's sequencing allows students to revise previous content and boost their long-term retention. Sequencing vocabulary in this way not only provides opportunities for in-depth revision, but also helps learners connect current taught content to prior knowledge, encouraging them to forge links. This process moves learners beyond just retaining and understanding knowledge, enabling them to think, speak, write and read like subject experts.

Giving learners access to set vocabulary for a long time allows them to return to previously taught content, boosting their retention over time. Learners can work through the content at their own pace, at home or in the classroom, spending more time on topics they find more challenging - this gives learners the freedom to take ownership of their progress, and is a fantastic way to introduce them to the self-driven study environment of higher education and careers in the future - this further supports Ofsted's recommendations.

To further encourage learners to revisit past content, vocabulary can be sequenced in blocks separate from that which is being taught in the classroom, allowing for interleaving. For example, if your class is completing a focused block on rivers, then the vocabulary assigned on Mapper could be on coasts. This encourages learners to revise previously taught knowledge and make links to the current topic, encouraging rich subject expertise in every discipline.

The Bedrock-created content available on Mapper is easily editable, allowing teachers to alter pre-made vocabulary activities to match their lessons. For example, a vocabulary term in Geography may link closely to a case study used in class - teachers have the freedom to edit individual words to match their lessons while still saving time by accessing pre-planned lesson activities.

This, combined with utilising Mapper's sequencing function to pre-teach and assess taught vocabulary, links the work learners complete on Mapper with learning completed in the classroom, creating a holistic learning experience for every student.

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Sequencing is a method of ordering learning; it allows teachers to plan which knowledge learners will encounter within a certain period of time. It forms part of a holistic approach to planning lessons, where knowledge is introduced and consolidated seamlessly. "[Sequencing] gives [learners] the skills and the knowledge in the right order from Nursery to Year 6 within each subject."