Appendix 4
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
POSSIBLE LITERACY & NUMERACY STRATEGIES
Comprehension/reading strategies
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KWL chart – build on prior knowledge & focus on SLO’s
Preview text
Anticipation exercise
Keyword list/notebook
Verbal visual square
School dictionary – model good practice & encourage students to use it
Skim – get the gist
Scan – finds specific information
Visualise – pictures, symbols
Highlighter – select important text Post-its – summarise
Graphic organisers – record main points information
Cloze tests – discuss possible solutions
Main idea chart – finding main idea in a paragraph
321 chart
Think, pair, share
Mindmaps – recall/summarise
SQ3R – to study in detail, survey, question, read, review, recall
BUG – answer questions, box what you are asked to do, underline important words and go back over to make
sure you answered the question
Student “I can” evaluation-checklist of strategies mastered
JCSP whole school literacy strategy
Speaking & listening – oral text types
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Oral reports & presentations
Storytelling and Anecdotes
Arguments and Informal Debates
Discussions
Extended Conversations
Partner and Small Group Work – pair share, placemat exercise
Interviews
Meetings
Interest Talks – guest speaker & accompanying worksheet
Writing genres – Note: check out the format used by other subject departments as they may be different
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Letter - of application, thank you........
E-mail – protocol and etiquette
Recount – diary of work placement
Report
Persuasive - advertisements
Procedure
Explanation
Dictionary, thesaurus, spelling strategies, grammar, punctuation, proofreading
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Numeracy strategies
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Investigate possible useful resources on www.projectmaths.ie
Play Freerice.com to enhance mental arithmetic
JCSP whole school numeracy strategy
JCSP numeracy resources “I can posters” Agreed common use of calculator
LUVE 2 C U problem solving approach: Look carefully @ problem, underline key words, visualise problem,
estimate answers, choose information to use, calculate answers, u are great!
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Anticipation Exercise
Name
Date
Topic
Score
Agree
Before
Disagree
After
Statement
Agree
Disagree
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Instructions: Guess answers, read passage, answer again, compare results before & after
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Skimming should help you to:
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Skimming
read more quickly
decide whether you want/need to read something in more detail
think about your reading and ask questions
Skimming means reading something very quickly just to get an idea of what it is about.
Just skim over the surface of it to find the main point and don’t read every detail.
You need to be quite good at reading before you try skimming.
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Start off with a short piece e.g. a short text task. As usual, get as much
information as you can before you begin.
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What sort of piece is it?
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What is the title?
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Is there a picture or diagram to help?
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Let your eyes move over it quickly looking out for important words. Don’t bother
with little words like ‘the’, ‘to’ and ‘are’ or the descriptive words like ‘very’.
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Find out as much as you can as quickly as you can.
Tips
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Don’t read every word.
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Don’t read every sentence.
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Let your eyes move quickly.
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Keep thinking about the meaning.
Now try skimming the whole article. Concentrate on:
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the title
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any diagram/pictures
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the first paragraph
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the last paragraph
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the first line of the other paragraphs
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
How To Scan
Ask someone to read this with you if you need to.
If you want just one piece of information from a text (e.g. name, an address, the time of a
TV programme or a word you want to spell) you need to scan for it. This means looking
through very quickly without really reading the words. All you have to do is find the
word(s) you want.
Look at the list below. Tick the things you would use scanning for:
reading instructions
finding a telephone number
m
finding out who a letter is from
reading a book
finding a street on a map
looking up the time of a bus
finding a plumber in yellow pages
finding a word in the dictionary
studying an agreement
checking that a cheque has been signed
Steps for Scanning
Think about what you are scanning for.
Write it down and try to get a picture of it in your mind.
Keep thinking about what you are looking for and let your eye run over the page.
Don’t read the words. Don’t read the sentences. Just look.
If you don’t find it first time, try again.
Keep thinking about the words you want and keep your eyes moving quickly.
If you don’t do it quickly then you are not really scanning, you’re stopping to read the
other words.
You might need a lot of practice before you can scan well, but it will save you time in the
end. It’s very useful for looking up all sorts of things.
If you are not good at reading yet, you can still scan. Try finding words you know well, like
Liverpool or your own name, in a page of writing.
Now try some of the scanning exercises.
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Key Word & Scanning Exercise
1. Scan the handout and find the following key words
Circle each word
Questions Answers
1
2
3
4
5
6
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Placemat
Exercise
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
GRAPHIC
ORGANISERS
SOME EXAMPLES
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar
Sinead Lawlor, Loreto College, Mullingar