CHCEDS005 NEW Learner Guide V1.0

LEARNER RESOURCE
CHCEDS005 - Support the development of literacy and oral

language skills
For use in:

CHC30213 Certificate III in Education Support
&
CHC40213 Certificate IV in Education Support

LEARNER GUIDE
CHCEDS005 - Support the development of literacy and oral language skills
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Identify oral language, reading and writing skills. .................................................. 3
1.1 Explore link between oral language, reading and writing ................................................................................................ 9
Consulting with relevant teachers or educators.................................................................................................................. 11
The link between oral language, reading, and writing ........................................................................................................ 12
1.2 Identify skills required for oral language, reading and writing ........................................................................................... 13
Oral language skills ............................................................................................................................................................ 13
Reading skills ..................................................................................................................................................................... 14
Writing skills ........................................................................................................................................................................ 14
1.3 – Recognise the use of oral language, reading and writing for different purposes ........................................................... 19
Uses of oral language ......................................................................................................................................................... 20
Purposes of reading ........................................................................................................................................................... 20
Purposes of writing ............................................................................................................................................................. 21
1.4 Identify oral language, reading and writing processes with support from the teacher ...................................................... 22
Applying learning models ................................................................................................................................................... 22
Approved framework’s learning outcomes ......................................................................................................................... 26
Chapter 2. Work within guidelines of literacy program ........................................................... 28
2.1 – Read and interpret current curriculum documents in relation to literacy ........................................................................ 28
Reading curriculum documents .......................................................................................................................................... 28
2.2 – Identify current literacy programs ................................................................................................................................... 34
2.3 – Use agreed recording systems for students’ abilities in literacy as directed by the teacher. ......................................... 36
Running records ................................................................................................................................................................. 38
2.4 – Work within structure and guidelines of literacy program as directed by the teacher .................................................... 39
Working within structure and guidelines of literacy program .............................................................................................. 41
2.5 Select and modify appropriate resources to support literacy programs as needed ......................................................... 42
Resources to support literacy programs ............................................................................................................................. 42
Modifying resources ........................................................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 3. Support student literacy .......................................................................................... 44
3.1 – Use appropriate strategies to support literacy program under the guidance of the teacher .......................................... 44
Strategies used to develop Reading skill ................................................................................................................... 44
Strategies used to develop writing skill ..................................................................................................................... 45
Supporting the writing skills of students may involve a range of the following: .................................................................. 47
Supporting the reading skills of students may involve a range of the following: ................................................................ 47
Strategies used to develop Oral Language skill ........................................................................................................ 48
3.2 Encourage and support students to become independent, literate learners ..................................................................... 50
Implementing strategies for support ................................................................................................................................... 52
Setting Behavioural Goals .................................................................................................................................................. 53
Positive Support Strategies ................................................................................................................................................ 53
3.3 Support the accurate use of literacy conventions and processes .................................................................................... 54
Supporting literacy conventions and processes ................................................................................................................. 54
Consider Research to further support the students and supervising teacher .................................................................... 57
Content Reliability and Accuracy ........................................................................................................................................ 59
3.4 Monitor literacy program ................................................................................................................................................... 61
Recording key information .................................................................................................................................................. 63
3.5 Provide feedback and evaluation of student progress to teacher .................................................................................... 64
3.6 Identify correct storage and retrieval of confidential records ............................................................................................. 65
References .............................................................................................................................................................................. 68
CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 2|Page

LEARNER GUIDE
Chapter 1: Identify oral language, reading and writing skills.

As you go about getting to know your school, you will also learn that your role would mostly revolve around
assisting the classroom teacher with preparing and implementing the curriculum activity, supporting and
implementing education programs, supervising the children, and attending to students with special needs. Part
of your responsibility as a teacher’s aide is to provide assistance in the preparation of lesson plans, activities,
materials, and resources in the classroom. In addition, you will need to be able to identify and comply with
legislative and policy requirements.
Introduction
This course is based on the unit CHCEDS005 - Support the development of literacy and oral language skills. This
unit describes the skills and knowledge required in providing assistance to students who need additional support
with their reading, writing and oral language skills.
The unit applies to workers in a range of education support contexts.
The elements of this unit of competency

correspond to the following:
• Access and review current
education curriculum regarding
applying developmental and
learning approaches to basic
literacy and oral language skills
under supervision of the
classroom teacher.
• Determining literacy processes
that suit the student’s ability and
year level per educational
practices and guidelines.
• Examining learning environments
and current literacy programs and the factors that support applying literacy learning models to meet
student needs.
• Referring to the Supervising teacher for consultation to support student engagement by establishing
expectations for behaviour and provide instructions that meet the needs of the learners and education
context.
• Education support workers assessing and reflecting on work practices to use communication strategies
and positive reinforcement within the structure and guidelines of the literacy program.
• Promote appropriate methods to support the provision of a literacy and oral language support program
under the direction of the supervising teacher.
• Select and integrate literacy and oral language activities into the class curriculum for the purpose of
supporting understanding of the links between oral language, reading and writing.
• Implement the support strategies and oral language, reading and writing processes to record and
measure the effectiveness of the activities and student progress whilst maintaining student
confidentiality.
• Monitoring the literacy program and evaluating the outcomes against the provision of support within
organisational policies and procedures
• Engage in documenting observations, encouraging the development of self-reliance in literacy and oral
language skills and providing feedback as additional support to their supervising teacher
• Following correct procedures for the storage and retrieval of confidential records.

LEARNER GUIDE
The department of education and training is the department responsible for national policies and programs
relevant to early childhood education, government schools, higher education, vocational education, and
training, international education and academic research.
Education environments may include:
• Government school (pre-primary, primary and secondary)
• Private/non-government school (pre-primary, primary and
secondary)
• Education centre
• Kindergarten
• Special educational centre
• Community educational centre
Key legislation
Legislation may include:
Education-specific legislation
EEO and anti-discrimination
Child protection
Workplace health and safety
Privacy.
Most legislation can be accessed online by searching for it, either on
a Federal or State website.
State Children Act 1911
Children's Services Act 1965
National anti-discrimination acts include:

Age Discrimination Act 2004
Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986
Disability Discrimination Act 1992
Sex Discrimination Act 1984
Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
Workplace information may be available from:

Handbooks
Codes of Conduct
Printed or digital versions of relevant legislation (or summaries)
Training courses.
Racial Discrimination Act 1975

This ensures that Australians of all backgrounds are treated equally and afforded the same opportunities.
It is against the law to treat people of any race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, and immigration
status unfairly (on the basis of these qualities).
Preventing discrimination
There have been various national consultations, conferences, community discussions and online forums that
the Australian Human Rights Commission has enacted, to combat discrimination.
The Commission has also created resources for employers to respond to and benefit from cultural diversity, as
well as educational resources.
More information on this can be found out at www.humanrights.gov.au/racial_discrimination.

LEARNER GUIDE
Child protection
Child protection legislation defines the standards of care for working with children. You ensure the young
person’s safety and report anything of concern. If you have a reasonable suspicion that the client’s welfare is
in danger, you may be required by your organisation to pass your concerns on to authorities. This is known as
mandatory reporting. Not fulfilling it may be a violation of your duty of care.
Duty of care in an educational environment refers to the legal obligation of a school staff to provide all
reasonable steps to ensure that students whom they are working with are secured and safe from harm.
Jurisdiction Relevant legislation

Australian Capital Territory Children and Young People Act 2008
New South Wales Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998
Northern Territory Care and Protection of Children Act 2007
Queensland Child Protection Act 1999
South Australia Children’s Protection Act 1993
Tasmania Children, Young Persons and their Families Act 1997
Victoria Children, Youth and Families Act 2005
Western Australia Children and Community Services Act 2004
Other legislation relevant to children may relate to failure to disclose, failure to protect and who can work
with children.
Guidelines
There may also be a range of non-legislative requirements which apply to your work. These could originate
from your organisation or regulatory bodies. (Note that there may be some cross-over between the different
types of guidelines.
National Quality Framework

The National Quality Standards (NQS) sets the benchmark for the quality of education and care services, and
promotes the safety, health and wellbeing of children.
NQS covers seven quality areas to ensure that education and care services for children are assessed. The
following are the quality areas under NQS:
1. Educational program and practice
2. Children’s health and safety
3. Physical environment
4. Staffing arrangements
5. Relationships with children
6. Collaborative partnerships with families and communities
7. Leadership and service management
One of the quality areas, Children’s health and safety, ensures that students in school are provided with
security and supervision by the school staff. It sets out the standards by which the educational provider is
assessed.
The National Quality Framework and Standard align with the two national learning frameworks of:
• Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Early Years Learning
Framework)
• My time, Our Place: Framework for School Age Care in Australia (Framework for school age care)

LEARNER GUIDE
Workplace health and safety

Workplace health and safety (WHS) legislation outlines the responsibilities and obligations of all people in the
workplace regarding safety. WHS legislation varies slightly by State; you should be familiar with the Acts that
apply to your organisation and their regulating bodies.
State/Territory Act Regulating Body
Australian Capital Territory Work Health and Safety Act 2011 WorkSafe ACT
New South Wales Work Health and Safety Act 2011 SafeWork NSW
(NSW)
Northern Territory Work Health and Safety (National NT WorkSafe
Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 (NT)
Queensland Work Health and Safety and Other Workplace Health and Safety
Legislation Amendment Act 2017 Queensland
(QLD)
South Australia Work Health and Safety Act 2012 Workplace Health and Safety
(SA) Queensland
Tasmania Work Health and Safety Act 2012 WorkSafe Tasmania
(TAS)
Victoria Occupational Health and Safety Act WorkSafe Victoria
2004 (VIC)
Western Australia Occupational Safety and Health Act WorkSafe Western Australia
1984 (WA)
In order to comply with WHS legislation, you will need to manage and minimise risks in your area of care. You
will also need to report any breaches and carry out all of your tasks safely.
The WHS Regulations provides the more specific rules that must be followed by all school staff, including the
principal, relating to the work health and safety of the school/centre. This must also be followed by people
who are in contact with the educational environment.
There may also be a range of external non-legislative requirements which apply to your work. These could
originate from regulatory bodies, sector experts and organisations, etc.
Code of ethics
Codes of ethics relate to how employees conduct themselves
and interact with others. It is concerned with not just doing what
is necessary but what is right. This is especially important as
teachers and educational staff are in positions of authority over
children and are often looked up to as role models.

LEARNER GUIDE
For example, the Queensland Code of Ethics for Teachers requires them to demonstrate:
Integrity
Dignity
Responsibility
Respect
Justice
Care.
A code of ethics applies not just to staff’s interactions with students but their families/carers and other
colleagues or professionals.
(Source: ‘Code of Ethics for Teachers in Queensland’, Queensland College of Teachers.
http://www.qct.edu.au/pdf/CodeOfEthicsPoster20081215.pdf. Accessed: 19th April 2018)
Codes of practice
Codes of practice are professional standards for employees, often enacted by the regulatory body for that
profession. They are used to ensure standards reach the necessary quality in that profession. This is important
both for the people it serves and the profession’s reputation.
For example, the ACT Code of Professional Practice for teachers covers:
Service to the public
Responsiveness to the government and needs of the public
Accountability
Fairness and integrity
Efficiency and effectiveness.
Each principle creates a range of obligations for teachers, which are listed in more detail in the Code. These
are concrete actions and requirements. When it is unclear which is the correct action in a scenario, those
principles should be used to guide decision making.

LEARNER GUIDE
Education policies and procedures

Policies and procedures in education are as important as those that are used in any workplace. These guide
the education environment on which programs they should include, following the current curriculum.
These are the examples of policies under school education:
A Fresh Start – It aims to improve the preparation and quality of teachers in all schools by focusing
on the teaching initiative in the workplace cycle. It also addresses issues such as teacher supply,
initial teacher education, and supervision, mentoring and induction.
Assessment - Used to promote learning through timely feedback that informs future teaching and
learning and builds students’ confidence in
their ability to learn
Curriculum Provision to Students with

Disability – Schools are to ensure that
reasonable adjustments are implemented
to allow participation of students with
disability in the learning process, which
includes demonstration of the knowledge
and understanding.
Homework - Schools are required to develop a school homework policy in consultation with the
school community
Inclusive Education Policy - Ensures that ‘all Australian governments and all school sectors provide
all students with access to high-quality schooling that is free from any types of discrimination’
Reporting to Parents - Communicating with parents and building the school parent partnership to
improve student learning
Smart classroom - Focuses on what students need, and uses matching technology to those needs
and creates environments for student success
The responsibilities and processes to be followed by personnel working in the educational environment are
outlined in the School Education procedures. It is categorised into the following:
School Community - concerned with the establishment and maintenance of safe and supportive
school environments
School Management - provide guidance in relation to the operational functions of schools, as well
as the services and programs they offer
Student Learning and Wellbeing - guide the delivery of services, programs and activities that support
students' learning, as well as their physical, psychological and emotional well-being
(Source: Policy and Procedure Register, http://ppr.det.qld.gov.au/pif/policies/Pages/school-education.aspx

Accessed 22.819)

LEARNER GUIDE
1.1 EXPLORE LINK BETWEEN ORAL LANGUAGE, READING AND WRITING
Literacy development
From the early years of education, one of the
major focusses of student development is to
introduce them to literacy and gradually build
their ability to read, write and use oral language
to express ideas and concepts. Students will
learn to apply reading and writing skills in a
range of circumstances. In its most basic
explanation, literacy refers to the ability to use
written language actively and passively and to
write and to express your thoughts in an
organized way. Oral language is the system
through which we use spoken words to express
knowledge, ideas, and feelings.
Safe and supportive practices

Ensuring that children and young people feel
safe and supported is a key factor in guiding their behaviour in the right direction. Feeling insecure or unsure
of their environment can have a negative effect on how children and young people feel and this will be
reflected in their behaviour.
You should be aiming to incorporate strategies into your working practices which aim to ensure that children
and young people feel safe and supported at all times.
You can promote a safe and supportive environment by incorporating practices such as:
Value diversity – all children and young people will be different. They will have different interests,
backgrounds, hobbies, etc. You should be recognising individualities and embracing them in your
practices; this will help children to feel valued and more comfortable in being themselves around
you
Practice communication – don’t underestimate the power of talking! You don’t necessarily have to
talk about intense feelings all of the time, but just engaging in regular conversation will allow the
children to get to know you and begin to place trust in you. A simple ‘Hi, how are you?” can go a
really long way
Have non-negotiable rules in place – whilst children and young people stereotypically live for
breaking rules, having strict guidelines in place where necessary will indicate that you are running a
safeguarded environment. This will help children and young people to feel safe and protected
Have bullying protocols in place – this is hopefully a worst-case scenario that you will rarely have to
encounter, but having open and clear intentions when it comes to bullying may increase the chances
of children/young people speaking to you and increasing their sense of safety
Skills and knowledge required by students

The range and complexity of literacy and oral language skills required by students will increase as they
progress through the education system. However, it is fundamental for children to have a grasp of basic
concepts before moving on to more complex ones. This is another reason why it is important to provide
additional help to those who appear to be struggling with oral language, reading and writing.

LEARNER GUIDE
Leaving students to struggle with basic skills will ultimately result in them being unable to comprehend
more difficult ones as they arise.
When preparing to provide support to students with their numeracy, one of the key things to establish is the
skills and knowledge they require. Grammatical issues and reading and writing concepts and strategies will be
introduced to students as they progress, and support workers will need to establish what these are at the
current time for students they are helping.
Multiple different methods could be used to establish skill and knowledge requirements of students, such
as:
Recognising general capabilities as outlined by Australia Curriculum
Consulting with relevant teachers or educators to establish necessary skills needed
Reading through the relevant curriculum for the age group
Identifying the current skill levels of students.
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LEARNER GUIDE
Crucially, when the subheading for each element on the Australia Curriculum website is opened up, you can
select the ‘Learning Continuum’ option below the element description. This will then bring you to a ‘Learning
Continuum of Literacy’ page. You can select the required elements and then press ‘submit’, which will provide
you more details about what should be incorporated in each learning element, as well as the level of
complexity and the intended year groups.
You can also use the following link (a handout is available – refer to your assessor if you do not receive a copy).
http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/General_capabilities_-_LIT_-_learning_continuum.pdf
In the Australian Curriculum, students become literate as they develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions
to interpret and use language confidently for learning and communicating in and out of school and for
participating effectively in society. Literacy involves students listening to, reading, viewing, speaking, writing
and creating oral, print, visual and digital texts, and using and modifying language for different purposes in a
range of contexts.
using the Australia Curriculum numeracy descriptions will provide educational support workers with a
guideline for the type of work that needs to be undertaken by students.
The key ideas for Literacy are organised into six

interrelated elements in the learning
continuum, as shown in the figure shown
here.
Consulting with relevant teachers or educators

Another vital step to take to identify the skills and knowledge required to develop a student’s literacy skills will
be to consult with their teachers, or other educators. This will need to take place in addition to some of the
other methods that have been described. You might decide to hold meetings with teachers or teaching
assistants, or communication could take place via email.
Without speaking to those who spend the most time teaching students about literacy and oral language skills,
you will not be able to find out the specific details regarding the areas they require the most help with.
Communication between support worker and teacher may need to take place according to organisational
policies and procedures, such as:
The methods of communication required, such as via email or meetings
The length of time that should be spent preparing for each student
The information which ought to be shared about students
Any information which needs to remain confidential
The National and State regulations which need to be abided by.

LEARNER GUIDE
In general, there will be a need to discuss:

Where the student is at now, such as their skill or competency levels in relation to different
aspects of literacy
Their main strengths and weaknesses
Their level of self-motivation and desire to improve
Examples of learning methods which have already taken place
Planned literacy and oral language processes or skills to be learned
The preferred learning styles of the student.
The link between oral language, reading, and writing
Oral language skill develops before reading and writing and its importance is not only attributed to the
order of events. Progress in oral language skill is actually closely aligned with literacy development and
writing skill later on (Hemmings & Mackenzie, 2014). Oral language has also been linked with the
development of reading comprehension, verbal intelligence, and writing (Shanahan, 2006).
Reading
Writing
Oral
language
In this case, there are three major ideas that link oral language skill to the succeeding development of
reading and writing skill:
• Oral language, being the first to develop based on societal norms, has an impact on literacy
development
• The progress in oral language skill can predict success in later reading and writing
• Oral language skill, including listening, naturally extends itself to reading and writing skill

LEARNER GUIDE
1.2 IDENTIFY SKILLS REQUIRED FOR ORAL LANGUAGE, READING AND WRITING
Identifying current skill levels

In order to help children who are having difficulties with literacy, it will be necessary to find out where they
are now. There’s no point in arranging materials and preparing learning which will be too difficult or overly
simplistic for the children in question.
While the ages and year groups of the learners will play some importance in deciding what they should be
learning, age is not necessarily a factor in identifying their current skills levels.
Skills for oral language, reading, and writing

In this regard, it is important to have the basic knowledge of the skills that make up oral language, reading,
and writing. The following shows the general blueprint for each.
Oral language skills
Receptive Oral Language

•Defined as the skill in understanding of words and language from verbal communication. This involves
gaining information explicitly from what is being said and not just from gestures or from environmental
cues. This also encompasses the skill in being able to generate meaning based on what was spoken that
maybe beyond the present context. For example, hearing the word “ball” might mean a round object or
social event.
Expressive Oral Language

•Defined as the skill in conveying meaning through words and language by verbal means. This includes
not only being able to form words but also in communicating meaning through intonation, and through
cultural norm.
Language Content
•Defined as the vocabulary that can be expressed or understood during the course of verbal
communication but also encompasses the use of the right words at the right moment.
Language Content
• Grammar and syntax describe language structure as well as the order of events, the sequence of
sentences, and connecting different words to make meaning.
Working Memory
•Working memory is listed as a skill under oral language because the ability to hold a conversation
also relies on allowing a person to keep track of what is being spoken, what has been said
beforehand, and the implications for pushing a conversation or any kind of verbal communication
later on.

LEARNER GUIDE
Reading skills
Letter and Letter-Sound Recognition

• This is where it all starts. Letter and letter-sound recognition allows the identification of speech
sounds (called graphemes), which make up the sounds of a language (called phonemes). In this case,
one’s skill in identifying speech sounds at an early age will help in recognizing and identifying new
words being read and in connecting them to words already learned.
Syllabication
• In the same vein as that of identifying speech sounds, skill in syllabication also helps students to
decode words by separating words into distinct syllables.
Vocabulary and Word Analysis

• Knowing and understanding a wide range of vocabulary words, and decoding meaning from context
is a reading skill that paves the way for later comprehension skills. Having a wide vocabulary will help
in generating meaning even from unfamiliar text.
Literal Comprehension
• This is the first level of comprehension, described as the simplest form of making meaning from text
because the information is already stated clearly.
• If no interpretation is needed to understand the information, and everything is laid out (i.e. who,
what, where, how, why) in the text, then a student is using literal comprehension skill.
Interpretive Comprehension & Critical Reading Skills

• This is the next level of comprehension because it involves inferring and interpreting meaning that
may not be clearly stated in a text. Students must be able to connect different information based on
what may be hidden in the text. It involves:
• Literal comprehension
• Analysis of text
• Interpretation of text
• Evaluation of text
Writing skills
Mechanical Writing Skills
• This involves all fine-motor skills that required to write letter symbols on a page. The capacity
to grasp a pencil to form letters, and the correct writing of letter symbols is also included in this.
Grammar and syntax

• ident Grammatical skill is important in forming cohesive sentences, passages, and paragraphs
to convey meaning.
Vocabulary and Content Development

• The same as that of oral language and reading skill, having a wide vocabulary range allows you
to identify and use the correct word at the correct moment and the correct place. This also
involves using the best words that will fit what one means.

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Writing Styles and Writing Genres

• Being able to change one’s writing style to fit a particular genre of writing and for a particular
audience
Research Skills
• Lastly, being able to search for information that will make one’s writing even more substantial is
important. This does not only involve being able to search online but also about asking the correct
questions and being able to locate good sources.
The official Educators Guide to the Early Years Framework for Australia states that educators should be
assessing for:
Understandings
Dispositions (orderings, arrangements, positioning of things in relation to others)
Knowledge
Content
Skills.
Developmental Stages and Developmental Domains

There are two things you must keep into mind when discussing about measuring children’s abilities through
time: there is Depth, which assumes growth through time, and there’s Breadth, or growth according to different
domains.
Depth: Growth Through Time

Depth is a concept that is pretty easy to discuss. A stalk of wheat grows upwards, a child grows in height and
weight. However, it is important to point out that this growth occurs in developmental stages, also known as
developmental milestones. For example, a child must need to learn how to crawl before learning to walk, which
in turn is required before learning how to run.
This is a simplification, of course, but the general idea is that each developmental milestone occurs:
1. In sequence, one after the other
2. Is a pre-requisite of the next milestone
Just think about the foundation years in normal schooling. Before you can study as a Foundation Year 6 student,
you must first become a Foundation Year 5 student, and so on – the pattern is followed down the road. These
developmental milestones are interpreted in the same way.

LEARNER GUIDE
Developmental milestones are normally visualised as checklists that are segmented according to age. The Gesell
Developmental Schedules, for example, is a checklist made the same way, with each milestone corresponding
to a particular age where it is expected to be observed. To use it, people just to need to tick off statements that
correspond to observed behaviours. The newer version, called the Gesell Developmental Observation-Revised
(GDO-R), is a comprehensive assessment instrument that is still rooted on the original idea behind the
developmental schedules.
Breadth: Growth Along Different Perspectives
The next thing to keep in mind is Breadth. If Depth introduces the concept of measuring growth by stages or
milestones, Breadth: asks from what perspective? Breadth assumes that we measure children’s maturity along
different dimensions. To be more specific, growth is also measured according to different domains.
A poem, for example, can be measured by rhyme or meter, but you can also judge it by the emotion it ignites.
The fact is, there are different ways to measure.
Take note, however, that one other aspect of Breadth also assumes being holistic. The domains were not
chosen out of the blue. When we choose what domains to use, we assume that these domains, put together,
make up a complete picture of the child’s abilities, capacities, and maturity.
Summarising this we now have four (4) considerations when measuring children’s abilities over time:
1. Developmental milestones are in sequence and follow one after the other. (Depth)
2. A developmental milestone is a pre-requisite for the next. (Depth)
3. Developmental domains measure growth from different perspectives. (Breadth)
4. Developmental domains
are holistic. (Breadth)

LEARNER GUIDE
The Developmental Domains

Although different qualitative measures of children’s maturity and ability may focus on different domains, there
are five (5) developmental domains we are generally interested in: Physical, Language, Cognitive, Social and
Emotional. More details will be discussed in the succeeding sections but generally the domains could be
described as:
• The Physical domain – revolves around the capacity to move around in space and to use one’s arms, legs,
hands, and fingers to interact with one’s immediate surroundings with the most freedom.
• The Language domain – centres on the capacity to communicate, to use language for organising one’s
thoughts, and to use language for codifying one’s thoughts for the consumption of others.
• The Cognitive domain – focuses on the capacity to rationalise, to make sense of the world by virtue of only
one’s perception, to learn from one’s mistakes, and to learn new things.
• The Social domain – centres on the capacity to interact with people, to follow norms accepted within one’s
culture, and to maintain relationships.
• The Emotional domain – revolves around the capacity to manage one’s emotional reactions in varying
circumstances, to interpret emotional cues, and to empathise with others.
Since each domain delves into different aspects of the child’s development, each of the developmental
domains has unique developmental stages sequenced one after the other. This does not mean, however that
the developmental domains and how they are ordered are exclusive of one another, leading to two
characteristics descriptive of developmental domains:
1. Developmental stages from one

developmental domain may overlap with
another.
2. Some developmental stages may be viewed

as under one domain while falling under
another.
For example, the capacity to recount stories may

either be classified as under the Cognitive domain
because it deals with the student’s capacity for
memory, or under the Language domain because of the general language requirements of telling stories. This
is not necessarily an issue because, in the end, all we are after is the holistic development of children to their
fullest potential.

LEARNER GUIDE
Cognitive Developmental Domain

The cognitive developmental domain is characterised by the process of growth and development of the
intellectual faculties of thinking, memory, reasoning, analysing, and understanding.
Cognitive development covers a range of skills and operations including the following:
1. Attention – the ability to maintain the intensity of concentration and to manage the duration of the
attention given to a particular task.
2. Planning – the ability to construct a framework of operations even before the actual task is started.
Also descriptive of short-duration tasks and long-term tasks requiring multiple steps to complete.
3. Problem-solving – the ability to deconstruct a particular problem into separate and easy-to-understand
parts to find an appropriate solution.
4. Memory – The ability to encode, store, and retrieve information from internal and external stimuli. It
is generally subdivided into three types: short-term memory, long-term memory, and sensory memory.
5. Number Sense – The ability to grasp and manipulate numbers in different settings. This includes
performing mental mathematical operations, symbolic representation of numbers and practical
applications of numbers in the real world.
6. Classification – The ability to group and ungroup objects or concepts based on similar characteristics.
This describes the basics behind understanding how to chunk concepts so that they could be easily
remembered and understood.
7. Spatial Relationships – The ability to identify, recognise, and understand object relationships in three-
dimensional spaces.
The Educators Guide to the Early Years Framework for Australia also states that the ways in which children
are assessed should include:
Observation
Questioning
Feedback
Self-assessment
Peer assessment
Reflection.
More information can be found in the Educators Guide to the Early Years Framework for Australia from page
38 at:
https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/educators_guide_to_the_early_years_learning_frame
work_for_australia.pdf

LEARNER GUIDE
1.3 – RECOGNISE THE USE OF ORAL LANGUAGE, READING AND WRITING FOR
DIFFERENT PURPOSES
Purposes of oral language, reading, and writing

Why is it important to be able to develop oral language, reading, and writing skills? In a way, the world we
currently inhabit is made richer because of how we could interact using language. Furthermore, the
following are key purposes that make the development of these skills a worthwhile cause:
School, work,
Daily living
and career
interaction
purposes
Further
Leisure
learning
1. Daily Living Interaction
No man is an island and the bedrock of all social interactions is language. Being able to communicate
effectively and to respond appropriately to communication is a daily living skill that allows us to
function as productive citizens in society. Being able to use language in all media also helps us obtain
what we need, and in turn, give as a consequence of interaction.
2. School, Work, and Career Purposes

The economic purpose of learning these skills cannot be denied – we need to work for a living. In this
case, language allows us to perform our duties correctly and to be able to function not only as a part
of society but as important and productive members of it.
3. Further Learning
Beyond school it is a hallmark of human progress to be able to extend beyond what we have been
and explore other pursuits and interests. Language helps in this regard as it allows us to reach other
kinds of knowledge that may be beyond our immediate reach. With all the resources we can access
online, this is certainly a world of opportunities indeed.
4. Leisure
We also cannot deny that leisure plays a big part in the benefits of being able to use language. It
enriches our lives in so many ways, fuelling whatever we endeavour to do.

LEARNER GUIDE
Uses of oral language

The development of oral language skills enables us to listen to others and recognise the message they are
giving, while also allowing us to share our own feelings and ideas through speech. Oral language is a focus for
development all the way from Kindergarten to pre-primary, primary and secondary school.
It is important though to recognise the different ways that oral language can be used within an educational
environment. These will vary depending on the stage of education of the student.
Use of oral language skills may include:

To listen to others, such as:
o the instructions of a teacher

o the ideas and thoughts of
other students
o key points from educational
videos/films
To take part in group activities
To contribute to group discussions
To answer one-on-one questions
To tell stories/give accounts
To deliver a presentation
To demonstrate different feelings and emotions.
Children in the early years of education may need oral language skills to demonstrate various different
feelings, and they will need to learn the different approaches that are required to do so. Feelings may range
from being happy, excited, sad, angry, frustrated, annoyed, confused etc.
Purposes of reading
The ability to read a range of texts enables young children to broaden their understandings and improve their
levels of literacy. Reading and understanding information is crucial across all subjects in terms of
development. If students are unable to read and make sense of information, then they will struggle to
broaden their understandings when it comes to having to read a range of texts.
Purposes of reading may include:
To enjoy a specific use of words (poetry, description)
To appreciate new perspectives
To critically evaluate
To reflect on texts to develop greater understanding
For research
To compare ideas and/or theories
To be able to discuss the texts with others
To obtain instructions/directions.

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It is important to try and incorporate a range of these purposes into the tasks being set for students so that
they remain interested in reading and become accustomed to different types of text.
Purposes of writing
Educational support workers and educators will need to recognise the range of writing purposes when
identifying the types of skills which young people under their care need to develop. There are multiple reasons
why writing needs to take place both in school and in normal life, and students will need to develop the skills
to be able to write for different purposes.
Examples of texts that may need to be written could include:
Short answers in
response to
questions
Presentations
Essays
Posters
Letters
Emails
Newspaper articles
Poems
Short stories
Adverts.
These types of texts could also be categorised as ‘genres’ of writing, and are relevant in relation to the types of
reading that students will be expected to complete. Reading such texts will support them in understanding the
different styles that are needed to produce varying genres of text.
While students in the early years of education will usually be taught about the basics of writing such as
spelling and handwriting, educating students about how to write for varying genres will become crucial as they
progress through school.
Genres of text can generally be split into three categories:

Literary texts
Everyday texts
Mass-media texts.

LEARNER GUIDE
1.4 IDENTIFY ORAL LANGUAGE, READING AND WRITING PROCESSES WITH SUPPORT
FROM THE TEACHER
The role of education support personnel
Identifying the role of education support workers in your place of work will enable you to fully appreciate the
link between mathematical processes and support strategies. Finding out role responsibilities may involve
speaking with teachers and senior figures within the place of work, such as heads of department.
In general, and based on expectations according to workplace procedures, the role of the support worker
may involve:
Identifying where the students are at now – what are their strengths, weaknesses, and needs?
Finding out what learning methods have

already taken place
Establishing the preferred learning styles

of students
Identifying and acquiring the necessary

resources for learning to take place
Organising locations and timings for

student support
Leading student development sessions

and activities
Conducting regular reviews with all

relevant parties to establish progress.
Applying learning models

Educational support workers will need to apply different models of learning depending on the characteristics
and needs of the student they are working with.
The concept of learning models is one where theorists’ state we learn in different ways and methods of
delivering information and cementing that information in someone’s mind needs to be altered to take account
of this. The idea of learning models became popularised in the 1970’s and shaped the way we think about
teaching and education. In general, some kinds of assessment will take place which provides educators with
information about the preferred learning styles of students.
It’s important to keep in mind that there are a lot of educational theorists who are sceptical about learning
models as an explanation for whether student development. For example, what students may say is their
preferred method of learning is not necessarily the same as what will be most effective. Some students might
say that they learn best through group work, when in fact they only propose this because they find it more
enjoyable and it provides them with the opportunity to chat with friends. Other theorists outline that
‘matching’ of learning styles to a person is a myth, and instead, there should be a focus on educators using
evidence from cognitive and adult learning theory.

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(Source: https://learningworksblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/adult-learning-theories-an-overview/ -
accessed 30.7.19)
Communication between support worker may need to take place according to organisational policies and
procedures, such as:
The methods of communication required, such as via email or meetings
The length of time that should be spent preparing for each student
The information which ought to be shared about students
Any information which needs to remain confidential
The National and State regulations which need to be abided by.
Different meanings could be applied to what oral language, reading and writing processes involve. It could
refer to the steps that need to be followed by the educational support worker to implement learning
strategies, or processes may also refer to the actual learning strategies required.
If we are thinking about processes in relation to the steps that need to be taken by the support worker, these
will vary depending on multiple factors, such as the age of the students, the number of students requiring
support, the nature of their needs, and the resources available.

LEARNER GUIDE
Processes in oral language, reading, and writing

As part of your responsibilities, you must have basic knowledge of the processes involved in oral language,
reading, and writing skills. The following summarises these processes.
Processes in oral language
Phonological Semantic Syntactic Pragmatic

1. Phonological Processes
Phonological processes are predictable pronunciation experiments that children in the process of learning
how to produce speech sounds. In this case, they become errors in pronunciation if these
experimentations become consistent even after they have supposedly learned the correct speech sounds.
2. Semantic Processes
Processes involving semantics revolve around being able to connect words, phrases, and passages to their
meanings.
3. Syntactic Processes
As the name implies, syntactic processes revolve more around the structure, order, and sequence of
language to determine, identify, and interpret meaning.
4. Pragmatics
Pragmatics focuses more on processes that allow language to be used for daily living interactions. This
includes following and issuing verbal instructions, communicating needs given different avenues, and
expressing one’s self.
Processes in reading
1. Phonological Awareness and Phonics

As the name implies, these are processes that involve children being able to connect speech sounds with
their specific letters, syllables and words. Again, this is important because phonological awareness is
required for decoding new words
2. Comprehension, including pre-reading processes

Both literal and interpretive comprehensions have their distinct processes that allow a person to
understand text based on surface information and information that may be clearly stated but can be
inferred.
Pre-reading processes are processes that help a student to be able to understand a given text even before
he or she digs into the reading task. Examples of these processes are skimming, reading a summary, and
locating main ideas based on summaries.

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3. Reading Fluency
These are automatic processes that readers perform to make reading an easier task to do. Words are
decoded automatically, and words are grouped and regrouped fluently when tasked for understanding.
Reading speed is also part of this process as chunking words is important when discussing fluency.
4. Attitude/motivation
Processes involving attitude and motivation are hinged on being able to help students to take an interest
into reading even if it’s beyond what’s needed for school. This involves connecting reading to their
interests and giving reading material that are just enough for their skill to be stretched and improved upon.
Processes in writing
1. Mechanical writing processes

Involving all processes that allow a student to be able to form letters and put words onto paper. This
includes all writing exercises that help students form letters correctly and legibly.
2. Writing mechanics
These are basic processes involving syntax and grammar a swell as the correct order of content when it
comes to longer passages and paragraphs.
3. Pre-writing
Pre-writing processes involve idea generation and using prompts for writing to commence. This also
includes doing research, analysing the information and content collected, and then summarising it for use
in later writing.
4. Drafting
Drafting involves the act of putting words into paper based on initial prewriting tasks and what is
happening in the immediate environment. This is especially important when it comes to bigger writing
tasks.
5. Editing and Revision

These are processes that involve trimming down and clarifying the meaning of the passages that have
been first drafted. It is understandable that writing may not be perfect at its first development, like the
first run of an uncut stone; editing and revision gives it its polish.

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Approved framework’s learning outcomes

The National Law and Regulations determine that all approved services provide an educational program
that:
Is based on an approved learning framework:
o the two nationally approved learning frameworks:
Belonging, Being and Becoming—The Early Years Learning Framework for

Australia
My Time, Our Place—Framework for School Age Care in Australia
o jurisdiction specific approved learning frameworks:
Australian Capital Territory: Every Chance to Learn—Curriculum Framework

for ACT Schools Preschool to Year 10
Victoria: Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework,

Department of Education and Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
Western Australia: Curriculum Framework for Kindergarten to Year 12

Education in Western Australia
Tasmania: Tasmanian Curriculum, Department of Education of Tasmania,

2008
Is delivered in accordance with that framework
Is based on the developmental needs, interests and experiences of each child
Takes into account the individuality of each child.
You will need to determine which approved learning framework applies to your role in your organisation.
The nationally approved learning frameworks include the key elements of belonging, being and becoming and
both frameworks are made up of the following holistic approach to learning and development.

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The learning outcomes are:

Children have a strong sense of identity
Children are connected with and contribute to their world
Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
Children are confident and involved learners
Children are effective communicators.
The principles are:

Secure, respectful and reciprocal relationships
Partnerships with
families
High expectations
and equity
Respect for
diversity
Ongoing learning
and reflective
practice.
The practice is:

Holistic
approaches
Responsiveness to children
Learning through play
Intentional teaching
Learning environments
Cultural competence
Continuity of learning and transitions
Assessment for learning.
All of the aspects of these three key elements should be at the heart of the educational program you provide
to the children in your care and should be evident in all stages of planning and the provision of learning and
development activities.

LEARNER GUIDE
Chapter 2. Work within guidelines of literacy program
2.1 – READ AND INTERPRET CURRENT CURRICULUM DOCUMENTS IN RELATION TO

LITERACY
Reading curriculum documents
When devising the learning development needs of students in relation to literacy, it is highly important that
the curriculum is kept in mind. While a variety of methods might be used to help students who have been
struggling with regular classroom teaching, additional support will still need to keep the expected curriculum
in mind.
Reading the curriculum will help those responsible for educating to recognise what children of particular ages
should be learning, the levels they should be attaining, and potential methods of teaching.
Since 2014, all states and territories in Australia have started to implement the national curriculum which was
developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). States and territories
still hold responsibility for credentialing and assessment requirements and processes.
The ACARA was established in 2008 by an Act of the Australian Federal Parliament, and carries out its work in
collaboration with various stakeholders, such as governments, State and Territory education authorities,
teachers, principals, professional education authorities, and the general public. This consultation enables them
to create a curriculum which sets expectations for what young Australians are taught, regardless of their
background or where they live.
Source: Overview, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, https://www.acara.edu.au/about-us
(access date: 05/04/2018).
From Foundation through to Year 12, curricula for 43 learning areas have been developed. These can be
accessed by teachers, support workers and others on the Australian Curriculum website.
The following link should be used to access the relevant curricula. You will be able to print and/or download
documents as required:
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/download?view=f10 (access date: 05/04/2018).
You will be presented with tabs to choose between F-10 Curriculum and Senior Secondary Curriculum. Below
this, you can then select the relevant learning area and subject that you want to view the curriculum for on
the left side of the screen. In relation to oral language, reading and writing skills, this is likely to be
‘Mathematics.’ In the next section, you choose the particular year level which you want to see the curriculum
for, and finally, you can select the
particular elements of the curriculum to
be viewed.
The curriculum elements include:

Cover page
Table of contents
How the Learning Area/Subject
works
Year level / band descriptions
Content descriptions
Content elaborations
Achievement standards
Glossary.

LEARNER GUIDE
Receiving instructions from teacher

As mentioned previously, it is fundamental that employees who are responsible for supporting students with
their numeracy communicate with teachers when devising an appropriate learning program. Communication
may need to take place according to workplace policies and procedures. For example, the extent to which
support workers are allowed autonomy when creating programs will vary between educational environments.
The key thing to consider when developing a literacy support program alongside a teacher is to establish the
needs of the student(s) and their individual circumstances.
Your role in literacy programs

Although different literacy programs will have different teaching strategies, content, and assessments, there
are general responsibilities that you will be asked to perform when assisting in a literacy program:
• Giving oral language drills and other individualised activities after a group session.
• Provide additional reading exercises after class
• Give specific interventions to students who have different needs
• Work collaboratively with other education personnel
• Observe and monitor students while they are under the program
• Provide feedback to the supervising teacher and other education personnel
• Support in developing and modifying strategies to address student needs
Existing literacy programs
These are existing literacy programs that you may encounter when supporting students at the centre:
Language, Learning, and Literacy (L3)
• According to the NSW Department of Education and Training, Language, Learning, and Literacy (L3) is a
research-based literacy program for the Kindergarten classroom that focuses on text reading and
writing.
• For this program, students are directly taught reading and writing strategies in small groups. After
performing group tasks, they are asked to do individual exercises.
• The program was designed to have students obtain the necessary skills that more complex reading and
writing would require later on.
Making Up Lost Time in Literacy (MULTILIT)
• MULTILIT is a research initiative from Macquarie University that is designed to provide effective
literacy instruction for struggling students
• According to Macquarie University, the literacy program’s approach is individualised to the student,
targeting student’s specific needs and then providing ways to improve on these skills through direct,
systematic, and intensive teaching and tutoring.
• Training can be provided both for parents and for teachers.

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Thinking of preferred learning styles

It is important to consider learning models when planning and applying numeracy support programs. These
take the preferred learning styles of students into account when creating particular learning activities and
tasks. Although it was suggested how many educational theorists are sceptical about the concept of learning
models, it is nonetheless useful to use a variety of strategies to help students and keep them interested. The
type of sessions to be created and learning styles will also be highly important when students of different ages
and year levels are being supported; it is unlikely that the same methods of teaching and support would be
provided to children in the lower years or primary school in comparison to students in secondary school.
To establish what the preferred learning styles of students may be, it could be necessary to:
Conduct observations
Issue well-designed tests
Speak with the students.
Their preferred learning style may be:
Visual – the child learns best through visual aids, by looking at and seeing diagrams, pictures,
charts, graphs, etc.
Auditory – the child learns best by listening to recordings, people talking, repetition,
chanting/singing, etc.
Kinaesthetic – the child learns best through actively touching and feeling tangible objects and
moving and doing practical activities
Reading-writing – the child learns best simply by reading information and writing it down.
Children have different ways of learning. They differ in how they perceive, store, and process information, as
well as organise and present information. Understanding how different children have different learning styles
help determine effective teaching strategies and methods.
The three most common learning styles are:
Visual learners
• images, pictures, diagrams, illustrations, films and videos.
Auditory learners
• listening and talking, discussions
Kinesthetic learners
• physical or handson activities
(Sourced: www.kidspot.com.au)

LEARNER GUIDE
Cultural realities
The term cultural reality refers to how someone's culture can define their world (i.e. their reality). So,
whatever culture someone has grown up around, this becomes normal for them (i.e. their reality) – they will
behave and abide by the customs of their culture without question and this becomes their expectation of how
to be treated. So, whoever you work with, you must accept their beliefs and work to accommodate them in
work practices.
You will need to identify the cultural differences before you can begin to address them.
Cultural differences may include:
Interpersonal approach
Thinking/learning styles
Expectations
Responsibilities
Priority setting
Experience and working styles
Gender and kinship differences.
You must identify and accept the cultural realities of the people you are working with – identify the changes
that you may need to make in your behaviour to accommodate them. This will ensure that you gain their full
participation in service delivery, as they cannot reasonably exclude themselves if you have made steps to
meet their cultural reality.
Tolerance of diversity
Everyone is different and someone being from
another culture, which has beliefs that are
foreign to you, does not mean they should be
shunned or ridiculed. You must learn to accept
the diversity of your work community and not
discriminate against others or look at them
unfavourably.
There should be no resentment to people from
other cultures, races etc. Based on these factors
– of course, there will be workplace disputes,
but they should not be on the basis of cultural
resentment.
You should view differences and diversity as a
strength, rather than a weakness. This allows
you as a group to have a wider perspective of
the world and to be able to empathise with
more people. On a personal level, you can focus on common ground, rather than highlighting the differences
between individuals.
The areas of cultural safety that you need to be respectful of include:
Nationality
Culture
Age
Sex
Political beliefs
Religious beliefs.

LEARNER GUIDE
Diversity
Diversity refers to difference. All of us are different. We have different personalities, ideas, values, beliefs,
perceptions, aspirations and expectations. Each of us is unique and educators, whether they are Indigenous
themselves or not, must take care to value this uniqueness.
The role of the educator is to provide information, learning and appropriate support. Effective education
practices personalise teaching activities, encourage engagement, contribute to academic success and increase
the likelihood of students staying on to graduate from high school or to participate in tertiary education.
Cultural competence is the knowledge, behaviours, attitudes, policies and systems that enable service
providers and workers to work effectively in cross-cultural situations and respond to the needs of a culturally
diverse population. Cultural competence is required at both the organisational and individual levels.
Diversity and inclusiveness

A school is a diverse community made up of people who may come from different cultural, social, economic
backgrounds. To work effectively in a school environment, it is important to learn how to value and appreciate
diversity.
What is diversity? The following are some definitions of diversity as applied in a school environment:
• It means employing staff regardless of education, disability and ethnicity.
• It considers the language differences of all staff in the education environment.
• It can be promoted through sharing of culture by students and staff who may have come
from different backgrounds.
• Parents of the students should be involved when promoting diversity in schools.
Diversity has different areas. It is common to think that this only refers to the difference in ethnic or cultural
backgrounds.
The following are the areas of diversity and their characteristics:

• Culture - A learned and shared set of values, symbols, way of life in a society
• Race - It defines a group of people according to their common physical characteristics
Example: Australians, Aboriginals, Torres Strait Islanders, Asians, etc.
• Ethnicity - Belongingness to a social group that has a common cultural tradition
• Religious or spiritual beliefs - The practice of a person’s faith that has impact on one’s values or way of life
• Gender - The social identity of being male or female
• Sexual identity - It is how the person sees oneself as either male or female, and how oneself is presented
to others
• Sexual orientation - Refers to the person’s identity in terms of emotional or physical attraction based from
their gender.
Inclusivity
Schools have responsibility for maximising the learning outcomes and wellbeing of all students and for providing
access to a high-quality education that is free from discrimination. All children are entitled to quality education
experiences. Students should feel that they are included in an environment of high expectation where they are
both able and enabled to learn.
At the core of inclusive education is the human right to education for all, which is pronounced in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 (UNESCO). This resource supports inclusive education.
Inclusive education means that all students are welcomed by their school in age-appropriate settings and are
supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of school. Inclusive education is about how schools
are developed and designed, including classrooms, programmes and activities so that all students learn and
participate together.

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The identification and collection of accurate information about the cultural, linguistic and spiritual backgrounds of
children and families is critical to ensuring that the needs of students can be appropriately met. This information
is an important resource that will contribute to education planning.
Educators should be aware of potential difficulties that they might encounter when trying to collect this
information. For example, some people could be sensitive or suspicious about the purpose for collecting this
information. It will be necessary to identify and consult with the appropriate people and to follow the protocols
that are expected within the community.
Educators need to gather information about children and their families to guide learning experiences that will
meet the academic and cultural needs of students.
Relevant information about the local region and the cultural identity of students could relate to:
• languages spoken
• spiritual beliefs
• expected participation in cultural events
• skin groups and relationships within the community
• relationships with community elders
• custodianship of the land
• relationship to other nations/ groups in the vicinity

LEARNER GUIDE
2.2 – IDENTIFY CURRENT LITERACY PROGRAMS

In the actual implementation of a planned program, your role is to be on the ground with the students. You
are directly immersed into their activities, as well as leading them in other instances where the supervising
teacher has assigned you to be. The following are specific requirements from required for supporting the
implementation of planned programs:
When considering the types of support that are required by students, it will be necessary to establish the
current literacy programs that have been taking place as part of their education. This is important because
you will need to try and design methods of learning that will support and supplement their current
learning.
You don’t want to start teaching students things which are beyond their current level of development or
something which they have not yet been introduced to in their normal lessons. It is recommended to try
and incorporate what students have been learning but adapt it so that it does not become repetitive and
boring.
To establish current literacy programs, you

could:
Speak with the teacher(s) of the
student
Consult with parents/carers to

establish learning taking place
outside of the education
environment
Examine the work conducted by

the student(s)
Sit in on lessons which focus on

literacy
Speak with heads of department

or year groups.
When speaking with teachers and others who can provide an insight into the types of literacy programs that
have been applied, you should aim to gain as much detail as possible about them.
You could find out the following:

What literacy programs have been applied?
How long have they been established for?
What programs has the student responded well to?
What programs or aspects has the student struggled with?

LEARNER GUIDE
Organising and distributing students’ work

Depending on the activity, you will be asked to pre-arrange and organise student materials in preparation
for the actual activity. You will be tasked to distribute them during a specified time and to monitor their use
while the activity is happening.
Materials that you will be asked to distribute and monitor might include:
• Worksheets – This will vary from subject to subject, but these are generally documents that serve
both a teaching and assessment purpose. These are mostly done individually.
• Student Notes – On occasions when students are asked to read through short references to school
topics, these reference materials will also need to be organised and distributed
• Craft Materials – For projects that require fine-motor skills or development, you will be asked to
distribute these as scheduled.
Providing assistance to general activities

As such you will be asked to assist in general activities in the classroom, including:
• Preparing materials and logistics for school or centre activities
• Monitoring student needs during activities and responding to them as applicable
• Guiding students on the location of relevant materials for activities
• Guiding students on the use of materials for activities
• Providing assistance in the use of school-mandated equipment including digital

technologies.
• Modifying activities as applicable to student needs
Selecting appropriate activities

In the process of designing a numeracy support program in consultation with teachers, it will be necessary to
choose the actual activities that can take place in additional sessions. These will need to be carefully selected
to meet the learning needs of the student(s). It might also be necessary to choose a variety of activities for
each session when multiple students will be present, and their needs or performance levels are different. As
highlighted previously, it is also important to take the curriculum into account to establish what a student
should be learning at a certain stage of development.

LEARNER GUIDE
2.3 – USE AGREED RECORDING SYSTEMS FOR STUDENTS’ ABILITIES IN LITERACY AS

DIRECTED BY THE TEACHER.
Recording students’ progress

Both during and after the completion of any numeracy support programs, it will be necessary to record the
progress of students. This will need to take place in accordance with the guidelines of the school, and any
agreements that were made with teachers when developing the program.
Monitoring and recording the progress of students is important for a variety of reasons, such as:
To establish whether the methods developed are producing the expected results
To inform teachers about the kind of support they need to provide students during lessons
To establish whether students are applying the skills they have learned in normal lessons
To distinguish between students who may be doing additional work at home
To find out whether the students need further support or whether they have closed the gap
in terms of where they ought to be in relation to understanding and performance.
Methods of recording progress

The methods required to monitor a numeracy program will depend on a number of factors, such as the type of
learning strategies that have been used and the number of students that have been taking part.
These may include:
Speaking with students to gain their thoughts and ideas on the sessions that have taken place
Consulting with teachers to establish whether progress has been made in the regular
classroom and in work completed
Speaking with parents or guardians to find out if the students have been undertaking
additional literacy tasks at home
Keeping written records of sessions
Reviewing the numeracy work of students
Issuing well-designed tests
Asking a colleague to sit in on a session to gain another perspective.
Out of the above methods, issuing tests will usually give the clearest idea on the progress that has been made
by students. For the data to be collected to be deemed valid, the students receiving support ought to take
tests prior to the program commencing, and at different intervals while it takes place. These could vary from
past exams, to quizzes and multiple-choice tests. The level of questions ought to be the same between tests,
or as close to as possible, as this will give the clearest indication as to whether progress had been made.

LEARNER GUIDE
Recording key information

It will be necessary for educational support workers to develop and use some kind of recording system to take
note of what is taking place. Notes could be made during sessions, or you might decide to make a note of what
took place after it has been completed.
It might be necessary to record:

The date and time of the session or activity
The name of the support worker
Any teachers or other workers that were present
The aim of the session
The number of students that were present
The names of the students
Details of the actual learning activities that took place
The skills and competencies which were focussed on/improved
Any issues that occurred
Areas of the sessions which need further work in future sessions.
Recording the effectiveness of development sessions will help you to recognise what methods students
respond well to and which they don’t. This will enable you to adapt future sessions to meet their learning
needs.
Assisting the teacher in identifying educational needs
As a teacher’s aide, you are tasked to:
• Record your observations of children using

mandated school or centre observational
templates
• Interpret these observations in terms of

student needs
• Support in the development of strategies

that will address student needs
• Support in the implementation of the

planned strategies to address student
needs
• Support in the modification of activities, lesson plans, and materials to suit student needs

LEARNER GUIDE
Running records
One recording system which might be used to assess and record the literacy of learners is referred to as
running records. This is specifically used to identify the reading attainment of learners. Running records are a
means by which a record of a student's reading may be captured through the use of a specific set of symbols
that can be quickly noted by the listener. The basic method is that the student reads a particular passage of
text, such as a page of a book, and the teacher or support staff member has a printed copy of the text that
they can annotate. The student reads the passage out loud, and the teacher makes a range of notes using
symbols or words to outline where words have been said correctly and where mistakes have been made.
Exact methods of running records can vary, but may include:

A tick is used for every word said correctly, and a cross for mistakes made
Words said incorrectly could be circled, underlined or highlighted
Words said incorrectly could be written down in a list
A range of cues can be used to detail the type of mistake, such as mispronunciations or visual
mistakes
Once the reading has been completed, the percentage of words read correctly could be
calculated.
By following this approach, words that the individual is struggling with can be the focus of future learning
sessions so that they recognise its meaning and how to pronounce it correctly. Another benefit of running
records is that it helps the educator to recognise if the reading resources being used are too easy or too
difficult. If no mistakes are being made in
support sessions, but the child is still
struggling with their literacy in class and in
the work they produce, then they may need
to be provided with more advanced
materials.

LEARNER GUIDE
2.4 – WORK WITHIN STRUCTURE AND GUIDELINES OF LITERACY PROGRAM AS

DIRECTED BY THE TEACHER
Education objectives and lesson plans
To provide this support, you must be aware of how a planned program’s objectives tie in with the learning
outcomes of lesson plans. This is commonly done by comparing each of a planned program’s objectives with
that of a lesson plan’s outcomes as well as a way to explain why each of these objectives might tie into each
other.
A lesson plan commonly distinguishes the objectives that need to be met for an activity, the instructions
needed to perform the activity, the target areas of concern for students, and the assessment that needs to
be done to determine if the objectives have been met.
A lesson plan’s objectives are normally written as SMART goals, an acronym that stems from famed
management consultant Peter Drucker’s management by objectives concept:
Specific– a goal that describes a specific observable

S behaviour
Measurable– a goal that can be assessed or

M measured
Assignable– a goal that has identifies a specific

A point person
Realistic– a goal that can be achieved given the

R resources
T Time-related– a goal that has a specific deadline
For example, a lesson plan might detail an objective where:
• “By the end of the session, the student must be able to tie a ribbon without assistance.”
In this case, you must be able to compare a planned program’s objectives with these outcomes. The two
kinds of objectives would match if:
• Both objectives target the same developmental domain

• Both objectives target the same behaviour
• Both objectives work on the same behavioural outcome

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Scheduling and other requirements

Aside from matching the objectives, you must also consider other requirements in the planning and
preparation of activities such as:
• When is the activity scheduled

to be implemented?
Scheduling
• The what and where, i.e.

materials that need to be
Logistics prepared, locations that need to
be scheduled
• What other materials must be in

place before the activity is done
Resources
Assisting students in using digital technologies

The incorporation of digital technologies into the classrooms bring about many exciting and fun
opportunities for learning and even for teaching.
Digital technologies are electronic tools, systems,

devices, and resources that generate, store, or
process data. This includes social media, online
games and applications,
multimedia, productivity applications, cloud
computing, and mobile devices.
(Sourced: Education and Training of the State Government Vic)
Part of your role as Education Support is to provide assistance to students in the operation of these digital
technologies during the delivery of planned education program.

LEARNER GUIDE
Working within structure and guidelines of literacy program
It will be necessary to take the current literacy programs being used by teachers into account when designing
additional learning opportunities for the student(s). Educational support workers will need to gain information
about the literacy programs being used in the school and class of each student they are responsible for. When
possible, they should try and obtain a hard copy which contains details of the program.
Literacy programs will vary in structure and type between learning environments. Generally, they should
outline the methods that are being used to guide literacy development, and then specific information about
planned activities and tasks that will be set for students. This could, for example, include names of readings
which will be given, types of writing tasks which students will be asked to do, and examples of assessments
which will be set.
Role of education support worker

Related to the extent to which the current literacy programs need to be followed is the role of the education
support worker. This will differ between educational environments, but support workers will usually be tasked
with helping children who are struggling with a particular aspect of their education. A range of methods and
approaches can be used to support the student in ‘closing the gap’ between where they are and where they
should be.
The level of autonomy provided to the support worker by the teacher and/or senior figures within the
educational environment will need to be clarified so that they know how strictly they need to follow the
current literacy programs used by the students’ teachers.

LEARNER GUIDE
2.5 SELECT AND MODIFY APPROPRIATE RESOURCES TO SUPPORT LITERACY

PROGRAMS AS NEEDED
Resources to support literacy programs

To give educational support workers the best possible opportunity to deliver successful literacy programs,
they will need to identify and select a range of appropriate resources. These will need to be suitable for the
children in question, and help to meet the overall aims of the literacy program, such as improving reading,
writing, and oral language skills.
Types of resources could include:

Writing materials, such as:
o paper
o pens
o pencils
o letter stencils
o markers and dry-erase boards
Reading materials, such as:
o books
o magazines or comics
o play scripts
o newspapers
o poetry
o dictionaries
Computers and keyboards
Headphones
Digital Multimedia platforms such as Tablets and electronic devices
Tape or CD players
Learning props such as toys and materials.
It may be necessary to seek funding from senior figures in the school so that the resources can be obtained.
Alternatively, these resources may already be available in the learning environment, but you may need to
request their use at particular times.

LEARNER GUIDE
Modifying resources
The modification of resources might be necessary to meet the needs of the students. The same resources
could be used by children of different ages, but their task requirements may have to be altered so that they
are suitably challenged. For example, if you were asking students to read articles in a magazine or newspaper
as part of a literacy development exercise, you might modify the task by allocating articles of greater
complexity to more advanced readers.
In addition, you will need to think about the individuals you are working with and their variety of needs and
circumstances. You may need to take cultural and learning needs into account. For some children, English may
not be their first language, and they may need additional resources which will help them with translation
issues. Children with learning difficulties may also require resources to be adapted to meet their needs.
If children had physical disabilities such as with their sight or hearing, educational support workers would need
to establish how sessions can be made as effective as possible and any modifications that need to be made to
written or audio resources.
Using relevant materials

In some circumstances, students will be required to use materials that they have little or no experience in
using before. On these occasions, you will need to assist students with how to use these materials correctly so
that they can be confident from that point on in utilising them for a variety of tasks and in working towards
meeting goals or objectives.
For example, if a student is carrying out a reading comprehension task and comes across a word they don’t
know the meaning of, they may need to locate and use a dictionary. This may not be something they have
used before but guiding them on using a dictionary will be much more beneficial for their learning than simply
telling them what the word means.
Where there is a choice of materials that could be used to complete a task, and the teacher hasn’t specified
particular materials must be used, you should allow the student some autonomy over the materials chosen as
this in itself is a learning opportunity. For example, if they were completing a design technology task about
strengthening a structure, telling them what materials to use and locating these for them takes away the
opportunity for the student to consider their options, think about the properties of different physical materials
and make what they consider to be the best choice.
As part of students using materials effectively, you should ensure that you promote waste reduction and only
using what is necessary. For example, in an art lesson where the students are using paints, you should guide
students in using these in a considerate way, putting a small amount of each colour into paint pots and
refilling if needed rather than filling up paint pots which will end up with paint being wasted and washed away
when cleaning up at the end of the lesson.

LEARNER GUIDE
Chapter 3. Support student literacy
3.1 – USE APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES TO SUPPORT LITERACY PROGRAM UNDER THE

GUIDANCE OF THE TEACHER
Strategies used to develop Reading skill
1. Vocabulary
• Using flashcards to drill students on previously learned vocabulary words is still a useful
method. Variations of this practice can also be used, for example, you can ask a student to pick a
flashcard and use the word inside it in a sentence.
• Using songs to help students remember vocabulary words are also useful especially if the
student you are supporting is musically inclined.
• Use a Word Meaning Checklist – List words on a sheet of paper then have the student identify
if it’s: a) a word they know well, b) a word they know a bit c) a word they’ve seen before or heard
about but isn’t familiar, and d) a word they’ve never heard of. This helps the teacher to be able to
gauge what words a student needs help with.
• Ask students to create a Mind Map focusing on a word then asking what other words and
descriptions are associated with it in terms of: category (What is it?), property (What is it like?),
comparisons (comparing to other words), and illustrations (What are some examples?). A good
strategy for teaching students about words in different contexts.
• Select words from a passage or a book, then ask students to pair off and then have the
students describe and explain the meaning of the identified words based on their context. You can
also ask them to justify their answers.
• Vocabulary clines – When teaching words that describe similar attributes but are different in
scale, it is useful to have the student order words according a given scale. For example, the words
small, large, and huge can be ordered according to size. You can also use flashcards for this.
• Cloze exercises – Using incomplete sentences with the target words positioned as blanks can
be used as good exercises for students to practice vocabulary words in context.
2. Comprehension
• What I know, What I Want to Learn, What I Learned (KWL) – A strategy where, given a topic,
students are asked to write down three things about it: What they know about the topic, What
they want to learn about the topic (Questions about the topic), and, after reading about it, what
they learned so far based on a passage or activity.

LEARNER GUIDE
• Making Connections – Involves creating activities that help a student connect the text they are reading
to their own life, to something they have read before or are reading and something that’s happening in
the world. For example, you can ask students to choose a passage from a book then let them explain a
similar situation that they have encountered.
• Predicting – Involves creating activities that ask learners to use information on had from text, graphics
and experiences to predict what will happen on a particular narrative. For example, you can ask students
to guess what a short story will all be about based on its first five sentences.
• Questioning – Involves creating activities where students generate questions based on the test. These
questions may be asked individually or may be created as a group. For example, after reading a
newspaper article, you can put it on the noticeboard, then ask students to paste Post it Notes of questions
they would still like to ask about the article they read.
• Monitoring – Involves strategies where the student is asked to stop and think about what they are
reading. One strategy is to ask students to put in Post-it Notes on the text depending on what ideas they
understand and what they do not.
• Visualising – Involves activities where students are asked to visualise what they are reading and either
produce a picture or drawing about what they are imagining.
• Summarising – Involves creating activities where students are asked to condense passages of texts by
focusing on their main ideas and translating them into their own words.
• Think Aloud Reading – Makes use of Connecting, Predicting, Questioning, Monitoring, and Visualising
strategies through verbalisation, allowing the student to not only solve problems while reading but also
giving the teacher a way to assess and gauge the needs of the student.
Strategies used to develop writing skill

1. Handwriting
• You can wrap modelling clay around a student’s pencil or writing/drawing
implement to help him or her develop the proper grip for handwriting.
• As a remedy for problems with letter size, you can develop writing exercises where
the student first forms letters in bigger strokes and then slowly scaling them down to the proper size.
This can be usually done by allowing students to copy single words first then moving on to sentences
and longer passages so they themselves would make smaller letters to accommodate present needs.
• To solve problems involving letter forms where the student interchanges small and big letters,
developing writing exercises that gives cues to the students on how to form the letters will be useful.
For example, you can use boxes as cues for letter forms when asking students to write down a word.
For example, the boxes below can be used to stand for the word last.
• Problems with letter forms can also be solved by using ruled worksheets that gives cues as to how
high or how small to form the letters. The illustration below is an example where the yellow highlight
gives a cue to only write small letters up to that boundary.

LEARNER GUIDE
2. Writing Process
• Cut-Up Sentences – For students who are having problems composing more complex sentences,
you can develop an activity where they would be asked to write down a simple sentence on a piece
of cardboard, cut up the individual words, and then form a new sentence by adding more words to
it. This is also a good exercise for preparing students to write in different genres.
• Planning – For students who are having trouble generating ideas for a composition, you can ask
them to plan out their text by asking simple questions about it. A template containing the questions
when, who, what, where, why, how, and what next can be used to help students form their ideas.
This format is especially useful when teaching about story writing.
• Writing Prompts - Prompts are ideas or sentences that could be used to spark a student’s writing.
These can be used to ask them write sentences or even complete stories. For example, you can write
down incomplete sentences so that they will complete it using their own words:
o Before I sleep, I make sure to….

o I can never leave the house without…
o During the weekends, I…
o Whenever I’m with my friends, I love….
o My house is full of….
• Teaching Text Types – This will be discussed in detail in Subject 2 but the idea behind this is to create
activities where students will be familiar with different types of writing styles. Writing poetry is
different writing for the news, which in turn is different from writing for pamphlets.
• Mind Maps and Outlines – Asking students to formulate their ideas by using mind maps is also good
practice especially when they are having trouble with composition. A mind map is just a visualisation
of a topic into easy-to-follow diagrams. For students that are having trouble, you can ask them to
complete a template of a pre-built mind-map.

LEARNER GUIDE
Writing
Writing exercises can be developed which focus on the learning requirements as set out by the teacher and/or
the relevant curriculum. In comparison to oral language tasks, which are likely to be fairly interactive, writing
exercises will often rely on a brief being set by the support worker and tasks being set for the student or
group. Of course, the work of students should be reviewed, and verbal feedback should be given, but
strategies might revolve around trying to get the students to complete a variety of tasks to further their skills.
Supporting the writing skills of students may involve a range of the following:
Writing a short summary of a longer passage of text
Practising handwriting
Using letter stencils
Writing responses to questions on whiteboards
Asking students to write texts for different purposes
Using writing worksheets
Getting them to practice spellings or choose the correct spelling out of a list of words
Talking about aspects of grammar and their correct use
Encouraging them to write about their interests
Educating them about a range of word types and when they should be used, e.g. verb, noun,
adjective etc.
Editing a piece of text which has multiple errors.
Reading
As with writing exercises, supporting the development of student reading will usually incorporate a variety of
individual and interactive exercises. A range of suitable resources will need to be obtained which challenge the
students while not being too difficult or too easy. It will not be sufficient to simply provide a student with a
reading source and telling them to read it on their own; this could take place in their own time and is not
making effective use of the sessions taking place. It is important to try and introduce students to a range of
texts and get them to approach them in different ways.
Supporting the reading skills of students may involve a range of the following:
Get students to take it in turn to read parts of a text
Note down words which have been read incorrectly and go back over them after the section
of text has been read
Use books which are interactive and encourage the students to engage, especially for
younger age groups
Use articles and passages of text which are engaging and/or link to the curriculum

LEARNER GUIDE
Ask students to place their finger underneath the word they are reading and move it along as
they speak, which should help to avoid skipping words or saying words out of order
Identify games which involve reading and get the children to take part
Set the student(s) a task to complete which they must do by reading instructions
Read a passage of text which has a word missing and ask the students to identify what the
word should be from a given list.
Strategies used to develop Oral Language skill

1. Listening and Responding
• Think-Pair-Share – You can develop an activity which pairs off students and then asking them to think
about an issue, talk about it with their partners, and share their discussion to the class. This allows
conversation to happen in a safe but meaningful context.
• Barrier Games – These are activities that involve pairing off students, sitting them on opposite sides
of a barrier (or in different places as long as they are within hearing distance), and then asking one
student from each pair to instruct the other student on how to complete an activity without any visual
cues. This is a great oral language activity that strengthens conversational skill and oral language
composition in addition to listening skills.
• Script Reading – For one-on-one sessions, you can ask a student to read a conversation aloud with
you then ask him or her probing questions about the story details. This could be done in such a way
that you’ll initiate a conversation with the student based on what he or she has read.
• 20 Questions – This popular parlour game can also be adapted in the classroom or during one-on-one
sessions. Choose a mystery object then have the student ask questions to help guess what the object
is. You can also vary the types of mystery words to use, such as places, events, and popular
personalities.
• Question and Answer Throw – Done in groups or in pairs, this activity involves asking a question then
throwing a ball or beanbag to a student, which in turn answers the question. The student then asks
another question and then throws it to another person to continue the activity. This can also be done
in pairs.
2. Thinking and Monitoring
• Think Aloud – Although these are activities meant for reading, you can also use this in the context of
any situation. During one-on-one sessions you can ask a student to perform an activity then ask her
to describe what she is doing as she goes about completing the process.
• Word Generation – These are activities that start with a single word then continues on by asking
students to use the word in different ways. For example, you can shuffle flashcards with words on
them, draw one randomly, and then ask students to speak a sentence about that word.

LEARNER GUIDE
• Comic Strips – You can students to create comic strips illustrating a given concept. Since comic strips
are generally drawn with conversations in mind, it’s also a good platform for them to discuss dialogue
in a different format.
You might develop learning sessions which involve the student conducting a range of the following:
Using rhyming words, such as each student saying one in turn, or a student suggesting a word
that rhymes with one put forward by the support worker
Using picture cards or images and ask students to describe them using a range of keywords
Learning about syllables and how words need to be broken into different parts when speaking
Undertaking role play scenarios which encourage a back and forth conversation
Watching videos and/or listening to tapes and answering questions on the content or key
themes
Reading to students and ask them simple questions to see if they have been listening
Giving students an object and asking them to describe it with their eyes closed
Suggesting a group of students take part in a show and tell session where they describe a
personal object or photo
Give students parts to read from a script or play and speak them out loud
Provide students with conversation cards
Talk about the rules which govern speaking.

LEARNER GUIDE
3.2 ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT STUDENTS TO BECOME INDEPENDENT, LITERATE

LEARNERS
Development of self-reliance
Another role which educational support workers may have is to develop self-reliance in numeracy in the
students they are helping. This refers to them encouraging students to become more confident when it comes
to using numeracy skills on their own, outside of the learning sessions. It is important that skills and
knowledge gained by students during support sessions is transferred to regular lessons and work completed.
Positive feedback
One method of encouraging the development of self-reliance could be to provide positive feedback to those
who have taken part in numeracy programs. You might decide to highlight the improvements they have made,
such as by writing out skills learned or developed, or by demonstrating changes in test results. This will help
students to recognise their progress and may provide them with a sense of fulfilment.
Positive feedback to encourage self-reliance could also come in the form of recognition for the work of
students.
This may include:

Involving students to identify their successes and communicating with them to see what
needs to happen next
Informing parents of the hard work of students
Sharing successes with the school, such as by informing teachers or making announcements
in newsletters or assemblies
Providing rewards, such as any merit/star system used by the school, or vouchers, sweets etc.
Encouraging students to become independent

Even when you have been supporting students to develop their numeracy skills in development sessions and
activities, it will also be fundamental to encourage them to be independent learners. Children who don’t
participate in activities outside of the educational environment are likely to miss out on valuable learning
experiences in comparison to those that do. This may include homework they are expected to do, or things
such as quizzes which will support their numeracy skills.
To encourage and support students to become independent learners, it might be necessary to:
Highlight the benefits of extra-curricular work to both students and parents
Provide examples of activities they could take part in, such as games and puzzles they could
do
Introduce a system which ensures they won’t forget about any homework they are supposed
to complete
Regularly check to see whether independent work they are supposed to have competed has
in fact been done
Provide recognition or reward for achievements of students due to independent learning.

LEARNER GUIDE
The level of support provided might differentiate in relation to the following:
The length of time spent explaining terms and processes
The number of examples that are provided before asking the student to complete some
questions
The frequency of support sessions
Whether sessions can take place in a group or if they need to take place individually.
Being supportive will involve checking to see that students understand what is being explained to them and
reassuring them when they are feeling frustrated or upset. This will involve using positive communications
skills.
Why establish expectations for behaviour?

Behaviour expectations refer to procedures and rules that are taught to children and young people to
encourage them to behave in a positive and respectful way. Setting well-defined guidelines for how you
expect children and young people to behave is crucial in ensuring consistency in behaviour and discipline.
Behaviour expectations will also help to ensure that respect is shown between children and staff as well as
between the children themselves.
If you fail to establish expected behaviours, it is likely to be more difficult to control the actions of children and
young people whilst they are in your care. It will also prevent children from feeling settled due to the
ambiguous nature of the environment. Although children will often defy rules and guidelines, it really does
benefit their sense of stability to have these in place.
Establishing expectations in consultation with your supervisor

If you are unsure or worried about how to implement effective expectations of behaviour, your supervisor
should be able to point you in the right direction. Sometimes experience really is the best thing to have when
it comes to knowing about different practices. Whilst the behaviour of children is rarely ever predictable,
having tried and tested practices in the past will give a good indicator of the best course of action to follow.
The A-B-C Model of Behaviour

A relevant behavioural model that is useful for our needs is B.F. Skinner’s model of operant conditioning. Also
known as instrumental conditioning, this behavioural model assumes the perspective that behaviour can be
shaped, controlled, and managed by its consequences –this means that behaviour is controlled by what
happens after its action. To be more specific, the chances of the same behaviour occurring again can be
increased (or decreased) depending on the consequences.
The chances of the same behaviour

occurring again can be increased
(or decreased) depending on the
consequences.

LEARNER GUIDE
You may already be familiar with how this works. A student who studied well for a test and gets good grades
will feel more inclined to study more in the future because he connects hard work with getting good grades. A
child who misbehaves to get attention may misbehave less if she doesn’t get any attention when engaging in
this kind of behaviour. A teenager who just started listening to popular music may continue doing so if he sees
that he gets to have more friends or more people to talk to as a result. Consequences have a direct effect on
how likely a specific behaviour will happen again in the future.
Implementing strategies for support

In order to support children and young people who have additional needs, you will need to implement specific
strategies which are catered for their requirements. It is a good idea to have accepted strategies across the
scope of your organisation in order to promote consistency in practice. If your organisation does have strategies
in place, take some time getting familiar with them so that you are working in a way which compliments the
practices of other members of your team.
For example, strategies might include:
Establishing positive relationships, which are the foundation for building children and young people’s
self-respect, self-worth and
feelings of security
Paying attention to the

child’s/young person’s
developmental level and any
program issues that may be
impacting on the behaviour
Using positive approaches to

behaviour guidance, for
example, positive
acknowledgement, redirection,
giving explanations,
encouragement, giving help,
collaborating to solve problems
and helping children/young
people to understand the
consequences and impact of
their behaviour
Supporting children/young
people by providing acceptable
alternative behaviours when
challenging behaviour occurs
Ensuring limits are consistent,

carried out in a calm, firm
manner, followed through and that children and young people are helped to behave within the limits
Involving the family and the child/young person in appropriate ways in addressing challenging behaviour
Using other professionals when necessary to help with behaviour guidance
Identifying children and young people’s strengths and build on them

LEARNER GUIDE
Setting Behavioural Goals

The process for setting behavioural goals should be followed when implementing strategies to support
children/young people
No matter what the circumstances, the process for setting behavioural goals should follow a logical sequence,
similar to:
1. Identify the behaviour that is causing concern, e.g. the child destroys property and other children’s
games
2. Analyse the data that has been collected through background research and observation to identify
possible underlying causes.
3. Identify both long-term and short-term goals. The long-term objective will provide the framework for
the behaviour that needs to change, e.g. if the problem behaviour was pushing other children, the long-
term goal might be to develop self-control and the short-term goal might be to play with other children
without pushing.
Positive Support Strategies
All strategies that you will generally use as a teacher’s aide will be hinged on providing Positive Behaviour Support.
According to the Community Services and Health Industries Skills Council (CHISC), it has roots in applied behaviour
analysis, person-centred practices, and the philosophy of inclusion, borne of the assumption that people with
disability require different levels of support. Of course, the same philosophy will apply to all students since every
person will have a unique and individual need that needs to be addressed.
The CHISC further explains that positive behaviour support is based on managing two things: decreasing the
probability of having behaviours of concern while, in turn, improving the person’s quality of life. This is found on
the fact that it is not enough to erase problematic behaviour, it is also important to provide a useful and more
positive alternative.
This approach has the following defining features:
• Valuing the person, deliberately building a sense of self-worth and
acknowledging all attempts
• A positive interaction
• Creating situations where the person is placed at their best
advantage.
• Acknowledging and trying to interpret what the person is
communicating via their behaviour
• Analysing the functions of behaviour.
• Teaching the person other ways to meet their needs or
communicate their feelings.
• Gently supporting and leading the person to a calmer state.
• Providing encouragement and feedback about personal successes along with aspects of difficult
situations the person may have handled well. It is also important to phrase the specific action that
deserves it so that the student can pinpoint what he has to repeatedly do.

LEARNER GUIDE
3.3 SUPPORT THE ACCURATE USE OF LITERACY CONVENTIONS AND PROCESSES
Communication strategies
Educational workers will need to use effective communication strategies to ensure numeracy support
programs take place in an effective manner. This should involve regular communication with those taking part
in learning sessions as well as teachers and senior figures.
Communication strategies that you may need to use could include:

Active listening
Giving clear directions and/or
instructions
Using language appropriate to the
listener
Providing written instructions to
support understanding
Expressing an opinion
Suggesting improvements to
strategy/methods for
assisting/supporting students and teachers
Looking at facial expressions of listeners to check for confusion
Listening carefully to others
Asking questions to confirm the meaning of what is being said by others.
Supporting literacy conventions and processes
A wide variety of literacy possible learning activities and processes should enable teaching support workers
to help students to improve their literacy and oral language skills. As these are progressing, it is crucial to
monitor the progress of students and check to see whether literacy conventions and processes are being
used correctly.
Supporting conventions and processes could refer to multiple different things depending on the
educational environment. It could be in relation to particular ways of working that are supposed to take
place during development sessions and have been agreed upon with teachers and senior figures. You might
have developed a range of tasks which aim to improve the literacy of students, but if these general skill
requirements are not being met, then the overall development strategies could be deemed ineffective.
Establishing literacy conventions and processes might require you to speak with a colleague, teacher, or
senior figure in the educational environment. You could also refer to any employee handbook or guide that
you have been provided with.

LEARNER GUIDE
LITERACY IN THE LEARNING AREAS

Literacy presents those aspects of the Language and Literacy strands of the Australian Curriculum: English that
should also be applied in all other learning areas. Students learn literacy knowledge and skills as they engage
with these strands of English. Literacy is not a separate component of the Australian Curriculum and does not
contain new content.
While much of the explicit teaching of literacy occurs in the English learning area, literacy is strengthened,
made specific and extended in other learning areas as students engage in a range of learning activities with
significant literacy demands. Paying attention to the literacy demands of each learning area ensures that
students’ literacy development is strengthened so that it supports subject-based learning. This means that:
all teachers are responsible for teaching the subject-specific literacy of their learning area/s
all teachers need a clear understanding of the literacy demands and opportunities of their learning area/s
literacy appropriate to each learning area is embedded in the content descriptions and elaborations of the
learning area and is identified using the literacy icon.
The learning area or subject with the highest proportion of content descriptions tagged with Literacy is placed
first in the list.
English
The Australian Curriculum: English has a central role in the development of literacy in a manner that is more
explicit and foregrounded than is the case in other learning areas.
Literacy is developed through the specific study of the English language in all its spoken, written and visual
forms, enabling students to become confident readers and meaning-makers as they learn about the creative
and communicative potential of a wide range of subject-specific and everyday texts from across the
curriculum. Students understand how the language in use is determined by the many different social contexts
and specific purposes for reading and viewing, speaking and listening, writing and creating. Through critically
interpreting information and evaluating the way it is organised in different types of texts, for example, the role
of subheadings, visuals and opening statements, students learn to make increasingly sophisticated language
choices in their own texts. The English learning area has a direct role in the development of language and
literacy skills. It seeks to empower students in a manner that is more explicit than is the case in other learning
areas. Students learn about language and how it works in the Language strand, and gradually develop and
apply this knowledge to the practical skills of the Literacy strand in English, where students systematically and
concurrently apply phonic, contextual, semantic and grammatical knowledge within their growing literacy
capability to interpret and create spoken, print, visual and multimodal texts with appropriateness, accuracy
and clarity.
Languages
Learning in the Australian Curriculum: Languages develops overall literacy. It is in this sense ‘value added’,
strengthening literacy-related capabilities that are transferable across languages, both the language being
learnt and all other languages that are part of the learner’s repertoire. Languages learning also strengthens
literacy-related capabilities across domains of use, such as the academic domain and the domains of home
language use, and across learning areas.
Literacy development involves conscious attention and focused learning. It involves skills and knowledge that
need guidance, time and support to develop. These skills include the ability to decode and encode from sound
and written systems, the learning of grammatical, orthographic and textual conventions, and the development
of semantic, pragmatic and interpretive, critical and reflective literacy skills.

LEARNER GUIDE
Literacy development for second language learners is cognitively demanding. It involves these same elements
but often without the powerful support of a surrounding oral culture and context. The strangeness of the
additional language requires scaffolding. In the language classroom, analysis is prioritised alongside
experience. Explicit, explanatory and exploratory talk around language and literacy is a core element. Learners
are supported to develop their own meta–awareness, to be able to think and talk about how the language
works and about how they learn to use it. Similarly, for first language learners, literacy development that
extends to additional domains and contexts of use requires comparative analysis that extends literacy
development in their first language and English.
Key ideas
The key ideas for Literacy are organised into six interrelated elements in the learning continuum
1. Comprehending texts through listening, reading and viewing

2. Composing texts through speaking, writing and creating
3. Text knowledge
4. Grammar knowledge
5. Word knowledge
6. Literacy in the learning areas
For further information, visit the following link to the Australian Curriculum
https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/literacy/

LEARNER GUIDE
Consider Research to further support the students and supervising teacher
Using Google effectively

Since most of your online search will start with a web search engine, it will be practical to know how you
would most use the most popular search engine for this time – Google, in this case. Here are some effective
tips from Google that will help you find the information you need quickly.
Punctuations and Symbols

Google uses punctuation to effectively limit your search terms to what you need:
Symbol Description
Search for web pages that contain the exact order of words that
“” are inside the quotes.
Example: “ teacher’s aide ”
Use an asterisk to as a placeholder for unknown terms

* Example: “education * teacher”
Use a dash ( - ) to exclude any sites with that word on your
- results
Example jaguar car – animal - cat
Find popular hashtags for trending topics

# Example: #throwbackthursday
Find social tags

@ Example: @googler

LEARNER GUIDE
Search Operators
Google uses the following operators to help you narrow down your results to specific types
of pages:
Operator Description
Get results from specific sites or domains

site:
Example: information technology site:tga.gov.au
Find pages that link to a certain page

link:
Example: link:youtube.com
Find sites that are similar to a web address you already know.
related:
Example: related:nytimes.com
info: Get information from a specific web address
Example: info:google.com
See an earlier version of a webpage.
Example: cache:wsj.com
cache:
OR Find pages that might use one or several key words
Example: car OR van
filetype:
define: Find specific documents that are of the same file type.
Example: air filter filetype: pdf
Give the definition of a word.
Example: define: augury
Remember that there are no spaces between an operator and a search term. For example, site:wired.com
will narrow down your search to the site wired.com but site: wired.com won’t.

LEARNER GUIDE
Retrieve, evaluate, and reporting on information

After knowing the basics of the Internet, the search engines you can use, and the operators that you can
employ to narrow down your search, it is important that you are able to evaluate the quality of the
information you have just obtained.
Evaluating information
In general, we have to evaluate the content we encounter online as well as the quality of the
information we download. Monash University encapsulates these guidelines with the following
questions:
• Is the author name specified?

• What are the author’s qualifications?
• Is there a way to contact the author?
• Has the author written elsewhere on the topic?
• What other topics did the author write about?
Affiliation
• Is the author affiliated with a reputable organisation or institution?

• Who owns or sponsors the web site?
• Does the information reflect the views of the organisation or the author?
Audience level
• For what kind of reader is the content intended for?
Currency
• How current is the web site or document?

• Is the site or document dated?
• Is the date of the most recent update given?
• Are all the links of the web site working?
Content Reliability and Accuracy

• Is the content reliable and accurate? Do other articles or sites confirm the
information?
• Is the information factual and not just an opinion?
• Can you verify the information from print sources?
• Is the source of information clearly stated, i.e. does the content state that it is
original material, or does it come from a secondary source?
• If it is an academic article, how valid and reliable was the source? Did the
article from a well-known peer-reviewed journal?
• Does the article have substance and depth?
• If there are arguments given, are they based on strong evidence or logic?
• Is the author’s view impartial and objective?
• Is the content free from errors of spelling or grammar?
• Are there other resources, print or electronic that may support or complement
the content on the site?

LEARNER GUIDE
Retrieving Information: A Short Guide to Copyright

According to IP Australia , a copyright gives you the right to prevent the copying of or a substantial part of a
written material, artistic work or other works of authorship. Since Australia has no system of copyright
registration, the right arises as soon as the material is created. However, copyright doesn’t protect an idea
or an underlying concept; it only protects the actual work itself – the expression of an idea. For example,
copyright protects the specific coding of software for scheduling but not the act of having software for
scheduling itself.
Copyright infringement is different from plagiarism, but copyright infringement may occur from plagiarism.
Plagiarism is defined as the use of another’s words or ideas and assuming it as his or her own, while copyright
infringement is the use of another’s work without permission.
In this case, it is important to attribute or reference copyrighted works at all times.
However, there are exceptions to copyright under the Copyright Act’s ‘Fair Dealing’ section:
• For research or study – 10% of one chapter/article
• Criticism or review, although the original work must be acknowledged
• Parody or satire
• Reporting news
For more information about what can be safely copied as well as other copyright concerns, you can go to
Smartcopying: The Official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE.

LEARNER GUIDE
3.4 MONITOR LITERACY PROGRAM
Why should you monitor new strategies?

When you implement new strategies into your work, you
will need to ensure that they are effective and achieving
what you had hoped. There’s no point in continuing to do
something if it is not gaining the results that you want.
You will be wasting your own time as well as
compromising the development of the children/young
people in your care.
In order to ensure that new practices are effective, you

should be consistently monitoring the strategies – looking
at how they are working and whether they are achieving
the intended goal.
You might want to ask yourself questions such as:

Is the strategy gaining the results that you wanted? – for example, if your strategy was based
on positive reinforcement, is the child/young person taking on board what you are saying or
is it just being ignored?
Are your goals realistic? – it may be the case that the goal is putting too much pressure on the
strategy itself. Could the goal be achieved by introducing a range of strategies rather than just
one?
Are your goals related directly to the strategy? – often the obstacle to achieving the final goal
is that the strategy being used is not catered directly to this. For example, positive
reinforcement is not related directly to reducing the frequency of challenging behaviour but
rather encouraging children to repeat positive behaviour.
Considering end goals and strategies can often seem too much like a business plan rather than providing care
and support for children/young people. Of course, dealing with people is never going to be as simple as
dealing with things like finances, things are always going to change and people won’t behave in the way that
you think that they will. However, having specific goals and strategies in place will help you to direct your
support in a more organised way, hopefully resulting in effective practices.
Record responses of children/young people

The key indicator as to whether or not a strategy is effective will be how children/young people are
responding to it. In order to assess the overall response to a strategy, it is a good idea to record the responses
of children/young people over a period of time. Depending on the specific strategy this may be over the
course of a day or a couple of months.
There a number of ways in which you can record responses. For example, you may produce a written report
after observing responses, or you may produce a log which documents whether children/young people have
responded positively or negatively to a strategy. The method that you choose should be relevant to the
strategy which you are monitoring, the time frame for which the monitoring is taking place and how quickly
you want to achieve the end goal.

LEARNER GUIDE
Organisational policies and procedures

All work that you do should be carried out in adherence to the policies and procedures of your organisation. If
you are unsure about anything or have any questions, you should talk to the relevant person(s), i.e. a
supervisor or a manager. Don’t do anything that you are unsure of; it’s always better to be safe than sorry!
(Source: Accessed 4.6.19 - https://www.ssflibrary.net/free-public-library-services-for-homeschoolers)
Adapting level of support

When you have monitored strategies and determined how children/young people are responding to them,
you may find that you will need to adapt the support which you are giving. This may because the strategy
seems to be unsuccessful, or the child/young person is not responding well to it. Either way, you should be
looking for alternative strategies which you can put into place. Don’t be afraid to start the process over again.
In all fields, it is normal practice to try and test different strategies until you find out what works best.
There are a large number of different ways in which you can adapt the support you are giving. The most
appropriate strategies will, of course, depend on the specific child/young person as well as the limitations of
your organisation.
For example, you may adapt the support you are giving by:
Working in cooperation with the family of the child – seeking information regarding how the child is
behaving at home and any strategies which they are practising
Working with additional members of staff – in particularly difficult cases, you may find that it will be
best to have two members of staff around to support a child/young person, for example, if there is a
risk of physical aggression
Considering isolation from the rest of the group during intense activities – if a child/young person is
highly disruptive, it might be best to take them away from a situation if they are affecting the
experience of the rest of the group. Ensure that this is not used as a punishment but rather provide
them with an alternative focus
Considering communicating with professionals to rule out the possibility of any behavioural or
learning difficulties or mental health issues – if you have concerns about a child/young person, their
development or their well-being, it might be a good idea to refer them to a person who has the
expertise to recognise any underlying factors which are causing negative behaviour. Once you have
done this, you will be able to cater your support for specifically to their requirements.

LEARNER GUIDE
Recording key information

It will be necessary for educational support workers to develop and use some kind of recording system to take
note of what is taking place. Notes could be made during sessions, or you might decide to make a note of what
took place after it has been completed.
It might be necessary to record:
The date and time of the session or activity
The name of the support worker
Any teachers or other workers that were present
The aim of the session
The number of students that were present
The names of the students
Details of the actual learning activities that took place
The skills and competencies which were focussed on/improved
Any issues that occurred
Areas of the sessions which need further work in future sessions.
Recording the effectiveness of development sessions will help you to recognise what methods students
respond well to and which they don’t. This will enable you to adapt future sessions to meet their learning
needs.

LEARNER GUIDE
3.5 PROVIDE FEEDBACK AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT PROGRESS TO TEACHER
Consulting with your supervisor

Before you can adapt your support, you should be going through any intentions that you have with your
supervisor. Having a positive relationship with your peers is really important and being in constant contact
with your supervisor will help to strengthen your relationship and improve the general dynamics within your
workplace. Consulting with your supervisor will also provide you with an opportunity to communicate any
concerns that you may have and clear up your own ideas. It will also provide your supervisor with the
opportunity to give you guidance as well as just generally keep up to date with your progress.
Offer feedback to supervisor

You may want to discuss the observations that you have made with your supervisor. Giving them feedback on
the work that you are carrying out will help to keep them on track with what you’re doing, how the
children/young people are developing and the strategies which are currently in place. Keeping your supervisor
updated with what you’re doing will also provide them with an opportunity to give you any ideas which you
may not have thought of, and generally give you guidance and support wherever they can.
Methods of providing feedback could vary, and may include:

Providing them with the evaluation forms which were described in the previous chapter
Having one-on-one conversations
Holding group meetings with all relevant teachers
Sending emails.
Evaluations of student progress could be wide-ranging and may incorporate a variety of information.
This could include:
The skills which students
have developed
What they have done well
What they have struggled

with
Areas of the curriculum

which have been focussed
on
The requirements they

may have during regular lessons
Additional learning needs they may still have
Possible approaches for future improvement.

LEARNER GUIDE
3.6 IDENTIFY CORRECT STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL OF CONFIDENTIAL RECORDS
Privacy
Education environments naturally gather personal information on their students so that they can provide
them with a suitable education. Private schools will need to manage this data in compliance with the Privacy
Act 1988, while public schools will need to follow relevant state/territory privacy laws.
Educators need to be aware of the information they can and cannot collect from students and to whom this
information can be disclosed.
Privacy legislation impacts on the information that can be collected, recorded, stored and disseminated. This
information can only be used in the workplace and in ways that relate to the services being supplied. Privacy
legislation is very specific about what can be disclosed to
others and how it should be disclosed.
Relevant types of personal information include:

Full names
Contact details
Birth certificates
School reports
Education details.
According to the Privacy Principles, educational

environments should:
Only collect information that is necessary for its activities
Only collect sensitive information with the consent of the student
Destroy or re-identify any information which hasn’t been asked for
Inform the individual how their information will be used
Only use or disclose information for the purpose for which it was gathered unless further consent is
gathered.
Storage of records
Whatever method you use for storing information, you need to ensure that it is secure. Records are
likely to include personal information about students, including their educational records and any
health and learning issues. It is important that this information is stored according to the procedures
of the educational environment so that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands.
Think about hard copies; how can you ensure that they don’t fall into the wrong hands? There may
be a system in place regarding how information is kept when it is not in use. For example, many
workplaces will have confidential information stored in a locked filing cabinet or in a locked room.

LEARNER GUIDE
When it comes to electronic storage, although it is extremely convenient you should also take any possible
risks into consideration. Computers should be secure against unauthorised access, and any information stored
on them should be deleted as soon as it is no longer needed. External electronic storage devices (e.g. USBs)
can be easily lost or stolen meaning any confidential information stored on them could end up with someone
who shouldn’t have it. To avoid this issue, you should consider encrypting your files or protecting them with a
password. This way, even if you lose your USB, you can be sure that nobody can access any confidential
information.
Retrieving confidential records

As with storing records, you will also need to follow the correct procedures when it comes to the retrieval of
confidential records. These may be required at various stages through the process of supporting students with
their literacy and oral language development. Permission may be required when you need to access paper
records, while you might need to ask the relevant personnel for copies of or access to electronic records.
Organisational procedures should be followed when storing and retrieving confidential records including:
• All laws within The Privacy Act should be abided by
• Permission should be sought when accessing confidential information
• The reasons for retrieving confidential records should be stated to the relevant person
• When writing out confidential information, store it in a locked filing cabinet
• Electronic documents with personal information should be password protected.
Speaking about students

There will, of course, be occasions where you need to speak about students with other key people, such as
parents, colleagues or teachers. You might need to speak about their individual needs, strategies to take, and
regarding their progress with the support sessions. However, you need to think about the way in which
conversations take place so that information is not overheard by unauthorised people.
It might be necessary to:

Be aware of who is present when communicating personal information
Use a private room to discuss information
Ensure that you won’t be disturbed or overheard
Explain to the recipient the sensitive nature of the information
Ensure that the recipient is cleared to receive the information
Only disclose the necessary information.

LEARNER GUIDE
Consent
As cases of students with disabilities and/or special needs is a sensitive issue in schools, it is important to ensure
that correct practices relevant to privacy, confidentiality and disclosure are applied. There are considerations:
• Only authorised school officials should have access to student information, whether education or health
information. In an emergency, a verbal request for sharing the student’s information may be allowed.
• A responsible staff must not provide complete personal details about the student involved when disclosing
information to a support specialist.
• The school can disclose the student’s information to a responsible individual if the student cannot physically
communicate consent. Students with disabilities are allowed to provide consent, especially in terms of:
o What assessment will be used with them, as with the cases of older students
o Any reasonable adjustment that will added to their individualised education plan
• Older students with disability who are high
functioning can provide consent as to what
assessment will be used with them.
• The school must consult the student before
making any reasonable adjustments to their
education or training.
• When designing the student’s IEP, a written
parent’s consent is required.
• Informed consent means providing the student
involved a summary of what support is to be
provided for them.
END OF LEARNER RESOURCE

LEARNER GUIDE
REFERENCES
These suggested references are for further reading and do not necessarily represent the contents of this unit.
Websites and Resources

1. About the AEDC Domains. Australian Early Development Census. Retrieved from
http://www.aedc.gov.au/about-the-aedc/about-the-aedc-domains
2. About thinking and learning. Kids Matter. Retrieved from: https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au

/families/about-behaviour/learning /howchildren%E2%80%99s- thinking-and-learning-develop
Baker, F. Learning styles in children.
3. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/literacy/
4. https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/
5. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority: https://www.acara.edu.au/assessment
6. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, https://www.acara.edu.au/about-us
7. California Department of Education. (12 February 2015). Cognitive Development
8. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & Education. New York NY: Kappa Delta Pi.
9. Educators Guide to the Early Years Framework:

https://docs.education.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/educators_guide_to_the_early_years_learni
ng_framework_for_australia.pdf
10. Five Educational Philosophies. Retrieved from: http://gradcourses.rio.edu/leaders/philosophies.htm
11. http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/General_capabilities_-_LIT_-_learning_continuum.pdf
12. Learning Styles as a Myth: https://ctl.yale.edu/LearningStylesMyth
13. New South Wales Department of Education and Training. (2010). Programming and Strategies
Handbook. Retrieved from:
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/middleyears/assets/p df/ellasupport2.pdf
14. New South Wales Department of Education and Training. (2010). Teaching comprehension
strategies. Retrieved from:
http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/literacy/assets/pdf/packages/combook.pdf
15. Policy and Procedure Register, http://ppr.det.qld.gov.au/pif/policies/Pages/school-education.aspx
All references accessed on and correct as of 22nd August 2019, unless otherwise stated.

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LEARNER RESOURCE

CHCEDS005 - Support the development of literacy and oral

For use in:

CHC40213 Certificate IV in Education Support

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 2|Page

Chapter 1: Identify oral language, reading and writing skills.

The elements of this unit of competency

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 3|Page

National anti-discrimination acts include:

Workplace information may be available from:

Racial Discrimination Act 1975

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 4|Page

Jurisdiction Relevant legislation

National Quality Framework

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 5|Page

Workplace health and safety

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 6|Page

Responsiveness to the government and needs of the public

Fairness and integrity

Efficiency and effectiveness.

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 7|Page

Education policies and procedures

These are the examples of policies under school education:

Curriculum Provision to Students with

(Source: Policy and Procedure Register, http://ppr.det.qld.gov.au/pif/policies/Pages/school-education.aspx

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 8|Page

1.1 EXPLORE LINK BETWEEN ORAL LANGUAGE, READING AND WRITING

Safe and supportive practices

Skills and knowledge required by students

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 9|Page

Consulting with relevant teachers or educators to establish necessary skills needed

Reading through the relevant curriculum for the age group

Identifying the current skill levels of students.

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 10 | P a g e

The key ideas for Literacy are organised into six

Consulting with relevant teachers or educators

The information which ought to be shared about students

Any information which needs to remain confidential

The National and State regulations which need to be abided by.

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 11 | P a g e

In general, there will be a need to discuss:

The link between oral language, reading, and writing

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 12 | P a g e

Identifying current skill levels

Skills for oral language, reading, and writing

Oral language skills

Receptive Oral Language

Expressive Oral Language

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 13 | P a g e

Letter and Letter-Sound Recognition

Vocabulary and Word Analysis

Interpretive Comprehension & Critical Reading Skills

Grammar and syntax

Vocabulary and Content Development

CHCEDS005 - Learner Guide V1 August 2019. 14 | P a g e

Writing Styles and Writing Genres

Developmental Stages and Developmental Domains

Depth: Growth Through Time

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Breadth: Growth Along Different Perspectives

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The Developmental Domains

1. Developmental stages from one

2. Some developmental stages may be viewed