ABSTRACT

Effective literacy lessons should include planned time for exploratory talk, discussion and play with spoken language. Teachers should be confident in understanding how effective questioning and scaffolding supports pupils' purposeful talk. The importance of talk to support children's composition skills is endorsed by research into the cognitive demands made on children when they write. Talk should underpin children's composition processes through the generation of ideas and oral rehearsal prior to writing. Drama also enables children to consider texts more deeply by experiencing a character's past, present and future. This enables children to consider different viewpoints. Drama also provides a creative context for writing. Teacher modelling reveals to pupils the processes and strategies that good readers and writers employ. Effective modelling makes clear how the learner should approach the task in hand. To hear the thought process of a good reader will enhance a child's understanding of how to make meaning from a text.