I had the pleasure of listening to Dr Rebecca Jessen today speak around T-Shaped Literacy in the Junior School. She presented at a Manaiakalani staff meeting and we were invited (through the medium of video) to be part of it too.
T-Shaped Literacy? The benefits of wide reading in general are well known and something that Manaiakalani have been advocates of for a long while now. There are practice effects that build endurance and resilience (Allington, 2012). Wide reading is also one of the key ways that learners develop word knowledge and world knowledge (Herman, Anderson, Pearson & Nagy, 1987). Wide reading also provides opportunities to learn about new types of texts including multimodal texts.” (Wilson and Jesson, 2019).
Unfortunately the initial uptake on T-Shaped Literacy has mostly been in our middle and senior school classes. In fact there has been some amazing inspirational work from our teachers using this approach. That hasn't been the case across the whole school with the certain belief that this model wasn't appropriate for the Junior School. In this presentation, Dr Jessen, makes it very clear how the approach can be used successfully within the Junior context in order to develop and extend reading and thinking skills. For me, I think it has reignited the spark for this approach within the junior context. I say this because when the approach was first discussed and I was trying to promote and enthuse in my own school context, the junior teachers couldn't see past the idea of three books on the same topic rather than theme. Therefore it died a small death with the belief that it just wasn't plausible. This talk by Dr Jessen reignites the possibilities, the impact of and indeed the easiness, for incorporating T-Shaped Literacy in all classrooms.
The above framework I love! It becomes a planning tool for teachers to guide discussions and not necessarily for learners to see. Certainly a push on those deeper understanding and critical literacy skills. This is not the only gem that is part of this presentation so I hope you take the time to check them all out.
At the moment there is a buzz within reading for structured literacy. This is a very formal phonic heavy approach using decodable texts. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am of an age where I have been through a number of these 'approach buzzes.' I guess my worry or small concern is whether our schools going down this route will find time to remember/try/incorporate other opportunities that will not only develop reading skills but broaden the understanding of our tamariki and the world that they live in.
I know the message for some of the structured literacy approaches is that the format must not be tampered with in order to get the greatest impact. However I would ask our kaiako to remember that all approaches are backed by research and have proven results. They therefore need to think beyond each approach as to what their akonga need to be a successful citizen, not just at the moment but in the future. It is a little cliched but the future starts now and our actions will impact generations to come. We are also stronger as a collective forging a path and not as a divided group.
