Scaffolding alphabetic knowledge when teaching and learning about texts

Abstract

This chapter outlines a particular text-based approach to teaching literacy called Accelerated Literacy, in which all literacy modes are addressed in the context of quality texts. The Accelerated Literacy cycle begins with reading and viewing, and moves to writing and creating images, linked together be international classroom dialogue. It is an explicit, literature-based cyclical sequence for teaching literacy. The educational theories of Halliday, Bernstein and Vygotsky inform this approach: Halliday, because the focus is on a functional view of language; Bernstein draws attention to teachers’ responsibilities to teach students the resources they require to become literate; and Vygotsky because the program is dependent on scaffolding student learning from a culturally informed other, the teacher. The program originated in lower socioeconomic and geographically isolated areas in which students did not generally have supportive literate practices at home to draw on in their literacy learning journey. The authors argue that although knowledge about the alphabetic principle (hereafter, alphabetics) is strongly linked to student reading success and forms a necessary part of early reading teaching, graphology and phonology are resources for conveying meaning, and deriving meaning from text is the purpose for using alphabetics. Shared meaning is established through dialogue as a starting point, prior to work on decoding and encoding. A focus of the program is teaching spelling using a range of spelling skills. Aboriginal students whose dialect is Aboriginal English and also students who speak English as an additional language (EAL/D) often do not hear some English phonemes as these are not present in their first or second languages, making the ‘stretching out’ of words unreliable. The focus on orthographic awareness builds deep knowledge and understanding of how language works.