The Literacy Hour and the National Literacy Strategy a guide for parents

Wendy Bloom explains what happens in the Literacy Hour at Key Stages 1 and 2 and advises parents and carers on what they can do to help their child with reading. You will see that we have used `he' for children and `she' for the teacher in this booklet - this is just to make it easier to read.

What is the Literacy Hour?

The Literacy Hour is an hour of work focused on reading and writing for children in primary schools. It takes place every day in most schools.

What goes on in the Literacy Hour?

Throughout the whole school the pattern of the hour is the same. As children get older, the work gets steadily harder, but the balance of learning activities stays mainly the same. The different parts of the hour will be explained as we go up through the age groups in this booklet.

How will the Literacy Hour help my child?

Your child should improve in many aspects of literacy, such as spelling, writing in different ways and learning more about punctuation, as well as in their reading. The hour is highly structured. Schools are getting some money for new books and other materials and teachers are receiving training in how to make the most of the daily lesson.

Do children under five at school have a Literacy Hour?

Strictly speaking, the Literacy Hour is for classes of children who are working from the National Curriculum (from Year 1 onwards). However, many reception classes are working in similar ways. Nursery classes, too, read big books together and the children learn about how books work.

The Literacy Hour at Key Stage I

In the first half of the hour the teacher teaches the whole class together. Big books are used so that all the children can see the print and pictures clearly. The teacher has planned in advance what she wants the class to learn. The teacher plans for the children to read a variety of books, both fiction and nonfiction. The first 15 minutes are used to teach the children about reading or writing the story or information. The children join in and do a lot of reading aloud together. Because the reading is led and supported by the teacher, your child can experience a range of well written books that he might not be able to manage on his own. If it is a story book, the class talks about what has happened and guesses what will happen next. Poetry and rhyme books are very important at this stage. Young children enjoy rhyme very much, and knowledge of rhyming words helps them to understand how a word should sound. The children are taught how to use familiar words and sounds, grammar and meaning to help their reading. The children learn about simple punctuation, such as full stops,

capital letters and question marks. They are helped and encouraged to use these in their writing. The next 15 minutes are used for teaching the whole class about letters, sounds, words and spelling patterns. The teacher will often focus on particular words in the big book, such as rhyming words, to teach about the sounds that make up words and about spelling. This kind of work is continued outside the Literacy Hour every time that children are reading or writing. The next 20 minutes. The children work in groups that do one longer activity or two shorter ones. One group each day works with the teacher. This is the time when individual pupils are taught reading and writing at their own level within the group. The teacher can also assess each child's progress. The other groups work without help on reading and writing activities planned by the teacher at a level that they can manage on their own. Sometimes classroom assistants work with a group, too. When the children are put into groups they are placed with children of similar reading abilities. Groups who are working on their own do activities such as writing, working with words and sounds, handwriting, computer work, listening and reading with a cassette tape, reading together, word games and making sentences. Most of these activities link in with the work done in the first part of the hour. The last 10 minutes is put aside for the teacher to go over what has been learnt with all the children in the class, to make sure that all the children have understood the main points, and to get the children to think about what they have learnt.

What can I do to help my child at Key Stage 1 ?

The most important thing is to read with your child! As well as reading aloud to someone who is listening carefully and giving help where needed, children need to talk about the book and to be read to themselves. Try to take a regular time as often as you can to read and enjoy books. Young children love this attention and their reading improves as a result. You could read a book to your child and get him to join in when he can. Children can do this best with rhymes and repeating patterns of words and at the ends of sentences. Re-reading books that are familiar to your child Parents sometimes think that once a book has been read there is no point in reading it again. Quite the opposite! Here are some of the good reasons for getting children to re-read books.

Children enjoy and get satisfaction from re-reading good books. This helps to turn them on to reading and gives
them confidence.

When children know most of the words, then they can turn their attention to reading fluently and with
expression.

Children can read on their own without having to wait for someone to help them. This means that they can do
more reading which helps them to become better readers.

When children know most of the words, they can learn about common letter strings, about forming new words
from the ones they already know and about similarities and differences between words. Writing with your child Young children learn more about writing if they have plenty of opportunity and encouragement to try it out. Many children like the idea of 'writing' books, so you could fold large sheets into small booklets. Children also like writing and receiving messages, so you might get some 'post it' notes or a message pad. Your child will learn gradually about spelling. It's probably best at this stage to show him about spelling from your writing for him. Try to give your child a blackboard and some chalk. They are good for fun practice of common little useful words such as the, and, went, she, like. Magnetic letters are very useful for young children. They give them the chance to make words that they can read but not yet write. Children can move and change letters to make similar words to the ones they know, such as sent from went, or we, he or she from me.

The Literacy Hour at Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4)

15 minutes shared reading and writing with the whole class. As your child moves into Key Stage 2, the teacher builds on the firm foundations laid down in Key Stage 1 for reading and writing. The range of texts is widened to include non-fiction such as timetables, instructions and rules. During this first part of the hour, the children learn more about grammar and punctuation and there is a drive to increase their vocabulary. For example, the children learn how to use speech marks and about joining sentences with words like while, though, and since as well as the old favourites and and when. In the next 15 minutes, the focus changes from whole texts to words and sentences in reading and writing. For example, in Year 4 term 2, the children might cover using apostrophes, spelling words that end in 'ight', or using the third and fourth place letters in words when looking them up in the dictionary . The next 20 minutes. Group working is organised in much the same way as in Key Stage 1. There are five groups in a class, each group at around the same level in their reading. The teacher does guided reading and writing with each group once a week on a rota basis. This is an opportunity for the teacher to give individual help and to assess each child's progress and needs. This assessment affects planning for future teaching. In reading there is a mix of reading aloud and discussing part of the book that has been read previously in preparation for the session. While the teacher is teaching one group, the other groups are getting on with their work independently. They could be word processing on the computer, reading with a tape, continuing writing started the previous day, research reading, choosing poetry for their personal collection or practising their best handwriting. By now the children should be used to the routine and be able to work well. The last 10 minutes. As in Key Stage 1, the review part of the session takes up the last 10 minutes.

What can I do to help my child at Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4)?
If your child has not yet joined the local library and you can get to it, now is the time to join! Children need to widen their reading and to use and browse through non-fiction. They need to be encouraged to read stories, poetry, plays and all kinds of information texts. They also need to be able to choose the kinds of books that they enjoy. It is at around this age that children can get hooked on to a particular writer or type of book. There is evidence that by the time they are in year 4 some boys may be losing interest in reading and not doing as well as girls. Some boys are more tuned into magazines, information texts of all kinds and comics. They need opportunities for this kind of reading at home. Libraries do an excellent job, but there is nothing like owning your own books. Having books of your own that you can go back to, talk about and swap with a friend, collect and treasure is really important. It can make a big difference to reading progress. Your child will be bringing books home from school regularly. He may not need to read aloud so that your job in helping him will change. Even as adults, we like being read to, so don't give up on this. Taped books are excellent, as they can let your child experience books that he couldn't manage on his own. Your child might now benefit from reading to younger children, toddlers or even babies! This gives him the chance to read fluently with expression in order to keep the listener's attention. Fond grandparents are good listeners and readers too. With spelling, make sure your child is using the LOOK, SAY, COVER, THINK, WRITE and CHECK strategy for learning new words. If you can spare some time regularly, your school will be pleased with any help you can offer. You might help out in the school library or read with individual or small groups of children.

The Literacy Hour at Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6)

The pattern of the hour stays very much the same at this stage. The first half of the hour is for whole class teaching as before.

The first 15 minutes is spent on reading or writing that is to do with the whole text, such as paragraphs, the organisation of information, the author's style or the characterisation in a story. The next 15 minutes focuses on spelling patterns, rules and exceptions, together with work on the beginnings and ends of words and their roots. The children might look at big books for older children. There are non-fiction books with really high quality illustrations, together with information organised in many ways. While the children are reading and discussing, they are also analysing the layout of the book and will use the good points in their own writing. The children read and study some of the children's classics and perhaps even parts of Shakespeare's plays. They look at a variety of poems of all kinds from different periods. Other cultures are represented by such texts as the Greek myths or traditional and modern stories from India and Africa. The children extend the range of their poetry writing, using different forms such as the haiku and limerick. 20 minutes of group work. The shape of the 20 minutes of group work is also the same, with the teacher teaching one group every day while assessing where each pupil has got to and what is needed next. The children who are working independently will sometimes be working together as a group, perhaps writing a play from the story being read or preparing a report on some research they have done. At other times the teacher might decide to pair children up across groups if the work is the same. Less fluent readers may be paired with more fluent readers to tackle a task together. In this way the less fluent reader gets a helping hand while the more fluent reader is challenged to read in an interesting way, to explain points clearly and to demonstrate a high level of knowledge, understanding and maturity.

The 10 minute review is also used for the same purpose as before, to reinforce new learning. The children also join in with this sometimes. They are asked to summarise and give feedback and to think about how they might improve their work. What can I do to help my child at Upper Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6)?

You may think that your child has finished learning to read and write by now! Not yet! Through years 5 and 6, children continue to learn and will still benefit from your help and interest. Carry on helping with learning rules and patterns in spelling. Apart from being a checker and making sure that your child uses the strategy of LOOK, SAY, COVER, THINK, WRITE and CHECK, you could draw his attention to examples of the groups of words he is learning about, for example words from science such as heart, breathe, breath, respire, respiration, inhale, exhale, inflate. Word games, crosswords, word searches, Scrabble and other word puzzles are good at this stage. For reading, you might think about an encyclopaedia, books of records, etc. Many children of this age like collecting facts and they are improving their reading at the same time. Joke books, verses and poetry books may also be appreciated - they can be dipped into at odd moments. A good dictionary and thesaurus are useful to have to hand for doing homework or for browsing through, if you can manage to buy them. You might give your child a subscription to a magazine that reflects his interests (even fanzine ones). There are also junior supplements in many newspapers. The other side of reading is getting into and enjoying a good children's novel. Children's libraries, book shops and the school can help you with selection, but at this stage it is mainly your child who will choose. Try to guarantee a quiet time and space for regular reading and homework. Don't nag, but take an interest in whatever your child is set to do and have an agreed time slot for doing it in. The best place to read at this age is in bed! Keep up if you can with buying books (and books on tape). This stage is important for your child as a life-long reader. If he is interested now, it is likely that he will continue to enjoy reading, with all the benefits that it brings.