Accelerated Literacy

The Accelerated Literacy Program has been designed to accelerate the literacy levels of marginalized students (NALP 2009).  It was first created to increase Aboriginal Student's literacy outcomes. From here, the program's underlying purpose is to use written texts to help scaffold students into the invisible rules of Western schooling, to build their confidence and knowledge and engage them in reading (NALP 2009).
Schools across NSW and other Australian States and Territories and their teachers who are involved with the program have to be willing to adapt and change their literacy practices. Teacher's are able to gain the knowledge and skills to adapt their teaching practices in line with the Accelerated Literacy Methodology.

To find out how to attend a professional development session, log into your DET portal and follow the links to find more information.

Accelerated Literacy develops different ways of thinking, it teaches students to effectively understand the following:

• ‘what’
• ‘how’
• ‘when’
• ‘where’ 
• ‘why’

of the language features within a text.

It allows students to gain control and lays the foundations of the English language for making sense of more complex text later on in life. 

Through participating in the Accelerated Literacy program an effective teacher needs to be able to connect to the four reader roles: 

• Code Breaker
• Meaning Maker
• Text User
• Text Analyst

(Luke & Freebody 1999)

By engaging and scaffolding students, the learning results in student becoming fluent, capable and independent readers.

The image above details the lesson sequence that takes place when employing an Accelerated Literacy program (NALP 2009). The image shows each stage of the learning process and how each skill area interconnects. As one skill is developed it contributes to another skills development. Eg, once a student has a sound knowledge of spelling features their writing develops and their reading levels increase due to their phonological awareness (Konza 2006). The sequence allows for a teacher to move in and out of each stage as required. 

Caitlin, by using Accelerated Literacy in your literacy teaching, with specific reference to Thomas, he will be able to increase is reading ability and catch up to his peers as you are teaching him at a higher level. Accelerated Literacy practices come vital in your class’s daily literacy teaching, it allows for students who are below average to develop their skills and concepts as well as allowing for students who are above average like Sally to excel and deepen their already advanced understanding of English features.