Set a rhythm for literacy

4 easy strategies to integrate literacy into your lessons

Real improvement in student literacy takes time. A one-off literacy lesson won’t do much for your students’ results. Instead, you can set up a rhythm for literacy.

I’m not talking about a drumming lesson (although as a music teacher, that does sound like fun to me.)

Instead, I’m talking about a rhythm for incorporating reading, writing and speaking into your lessons so that they’re integrated with your syllabus content and assessment tasks all the time.

And on that point, I would never expect you to teach a literacy lesson that is separate from content. We teach content and literacy together, right?

I have a few insider tips to share with you about different ways teachers create a rhythm for literacy. For the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to work in 9 secondary schools with teachers across the curriculum and here are a few proven ways of creating a rhythm for literacy in secondary school classes.

1. Writing Wednesdays

Andrew, a fabulous Legal Studies teacher, set up Writing Wednesdays for his class. Every Wednesday, the students do writing activities to practise writing up syllabus content and do exam preparation. At first they whinged a bit, because no student like writing, but after a while, the students enjoyed seeing their writing improve.

Tip: Set up one lesson per cycle that focuses on writing activities. Make sure it’s not last period or on a Friday afternoon.

2. Write a little bit often

An outstanding Drama teacher I know, Michael, does a little bit of writing every lesson. Drama is a practical subject, as we know, so students do a drama experience nearly every lesson. At the end of the lesson, Michael allows 10 minutes for students to write about the content they have covered (such as elements of drama).

Tip: Write at the end of each lesson

3. Build the literacy into your assessment program

‘Begin with the end in mind.’ Steven Covey

If you know your assessment task at the end of the term or unit, work out what is required and build in regular literacy tasks every cycle to get students ready for the culminating task. Plenty of great teachers use this strategy, and I’m thinking of Rachelle in Studies of Religion or Jackie teaching Commerce. They build up the literacy skills regularly in writing paragraphs in the weeks leading up to a longer task.

Tip: Use literacy to work towards a written assessment task

4. Starter activities

Marie, an English teacher, starts her Year 7 class with a short literacy writing activity every lesson. She does a little bit on sentence writing or PEEL paragraphs or highlighting activities every lesson, for 10 minutes every lesson. After that, she teaches the regular program. She told me that she has been amazed at how much students improve over a term.

Tip: Start each lesson with literacy.

What literacy rhythm would work for you? The start of term is a good time to start it.