Page 11 - English OLC Literacy Course 12 (2003)

INTRODUCTION 9
Oral language experiences in large and small groups also provide opportunities for students to clarify their thinking about what they have read and to share these understandings with others – to “make visible” the often invisible reading strategies they use to understand texts. In addition, opportunities to use oral language help students to expand their vocabularies, thereby improving their fluency in reading and their ability to express themselves clearly and effectively in writing.
Developing Reading Skills
As they enter the course, students might not see themselves as readers, since many feel daunted by the complexities of the print texts they encounter in school. In reality, most students do read some types of texts regularly in their daily lives – for example, websites and e-mails. Teachers should use such familiar types of texts as a starting point to introduce students to strategies and skills they can use to understand a greater variety of informational, narrative, and graphic texts and relate them to their own knowledge and experiences.
Students’ ability to read is greatly enhanced when they recognize a text as having authentic relevance to their interests and aspirations, in terms of the issues it raises and the information it contains. Teachers should therefore include a balanced selection of text forms (informational, narrative, and graphic, in both print and electronic media) at different levels of challenge, and should include texts on a range of topics that concern and interest students (e.g., on personal, social, health and safety, and career and workplace issues).
Developing Writing Skills
Students see themselves as writers when they have choices about the topics and purposes for writing, when they go through the process of generating and organizing ideas and information and conferring with others about ideas and style, and when they become accustomed to con- sulting resources such as grammar guides and dictionaries to help them revise, edit, and polish their writing.
Although the OSSLC requires students to produce writing on demand, developing assigned topics and using specified forms, it also provides scope for students to go beyond the specifica- tions of the OSSLT. Teachers should use the relative flexibility this course offers to provide regular and frequent opportunities for students to practise writing primarily but not exclu- sively in the identified forms, on a range of self-selected topics, and for a variety of purposes.
Integrating Reading and Writing Skills
Reading and writing skills are complementary and mutually reinforcing. For this reason, many of the expectations in the Reading strand require students to demonstrate their learning through activities that also involve writing. Similarly, many of the expectations in the Writing strand require students to demonstrate their learning through activities that also involve reading.
Teachers need to support and enhance these connections by introducing a rich variety of classroom activities that integrate reading and writing and that provide opportunities for stu- dents to develop and practise these skills in conjunction with one another.