2.

5 Apply I apply my knowledge and understanding of effective teaching strategies to

knowledge and support my students’ literacy and numeracy achievement throughout my
understanding whole teaching and learning program. I integrate literacy and numeracy
of effective through my delivery of the curriculum, as they are both identified in the
teaching Australian Curriculum as ‘General Capabilities’. Appendix 1.1 is a planning
strategies to document I use to plan my guided reading rotations. Here I have applied my
support knowledge of differentiation to group my students into similar ability groups. I
students’ determine the groups by their reading levels, gathered from running record
literacy and assessments I take myself. For example, the students in ‘red’ group in appendix
numeracy 1.1 I assessed to all be below a level 1 using the ‘PM Benchmark Kit’. This
achievement. meant that I could design specific explicit teaching and independent activities
based around level one texts, phoneme activities, concepts of print and basic
reading behaviours. For number teaching and learning I also differentiate
within ability groups to support my students’ numeracy achievement.
Appendix 1.2 is a learning sequence for ‘Activating Prior Knowledge’ and it
demonstrates my understanding of the ‘gradual release of responsibility’ to
support literacy achievement. For each lesson we follow a cycle of ‘I do, we do
and you do’, where I model the knowledge or skill to students, we do a shared
guided task and then students complete an independent task. This model
supports students to engage in and be successful when completing their
independent task at the end. Modelling is the first component of this cycle and
modelling is another effective strategy I use to support students in their
literacy and numeracy achievement, as I use the ‘gradual release of
responsibility’ in my numeracy teaching and learning program too. Appendix
1.2 demonstrates my use of ‘learning intentions’ and ‘success criteria’, which I
use across the curriculum to support all learning and literacy and numeracy
achievement. My understanding of learning intentions and success criteria
indicates that they give students a guide when working and students are able
to see if they are finished or successful by rereading the learning intention or
success criteria that are always visible for each lesson. Appendix 1.2 also
demonstrates my inclusion of feedback in my teaching as a strategy to support
literacy and numeracy achievement, as I incorporate feedback into our learning
sessions every block. At the end of each lesson we gather back together and
revisit the learning intention and success criteria. Students are then invited to
discuss their progress, were they successful and what they might need to
include next time. Using effective teaching strategies to support my students’
literacy and numeracy achievement is evidenced in their everyday progress
and application of knowledge and in their formal reporting. For example, each
student in my 2020 class has gained knowledge and understanding that they
did not have at the beginning of the year, I will be able to write statements
about their new knowledge in their ‘end of year reports’ in term four that I was
not able to write in their ‘midyear reports’. Through my continual assessment
cycle, I now know that my 2020 Prep cohort have made literacy and numeracy
achievements in the three terms of learning and my use of effective teaching
strategies. The regular assessments I undertake are running records, letter
identification, sight word checks, common writing tasks, number formation and
assessments working with numbers to 20. For example, I now know that
student X was able to recall 2 total letter sounds in term one and can now
recall all 26 and some digraphs. Appendix 1.3 is my 2020 running record data
and is evidence of how my teaching strategies enhanced my student’s literacy
achievement. The majority of my student improved two or more reading levels
each term. The benchmark for Foundation students is to reach level three and
83% of my students met this by term 4. A numeracy example from one
assessment I complete to assess forming and sequencing numbers, student M
was able to sequence and correctly form numbers 1-10 in term one and is now
able to write and sequence beyond 100. These effective teaching strategies
become second nature, like learning intentions and success criteria for
example, I do them every lesson because I know they are best practice and I
have seen how they support my students’ literacy and numeracy outcomes. As
my cohort develops and from year to year as I work with new students I will
adapt and evolve my effective teaching strategies to suit. I will also keep up to
date with new pedagogical thinking and incorporate new teaching strategies as
they arise, if they are effective and appropriate for my students at the time.