Early Years | Curriculum
Literacy
In a PYP school, teachers work to create a literacy-rich environment in which students have opportunities to develop their reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills inorder to become skilled and confident communicators and imaginative, productive and empathetic members of a changing, information-rich global society.
At ISL Students will:
- Understand and use the power of language and literature to inspire, inform, persuade, evoke and entertain, for the benefit of themselves and others
- Develop the capacity to examine ideas and arguments critically and to respond to them in a clear and increasingly sophisticated manner
- Use language as one of the essential tools for creative expression
- Recognise and work with a wide variety of texts and media; understanding function, content and purpose
- Develop awareness of different cultural contexts and experiences, and of the capacity of language to reflect and explore these
- Develop the proficiency in English necessary to achieve success across the curriculum
To support the development of literacy through an inquiry and agency-driven lens, ISL utilizes the Teacher’s College Readers and Writers Workshop model within the PYP context. In the reader's workshop, students have the opportunity to read a wide range of texts and to engage in activities that support their reading comprehension and fluency. In writer's workshop, students have the opportunity to write for a variety of purposes and audiences and to engage in activities that support their writing skills.
Reader's and writer's workshops typically involve several key elements:
- Mini-lessons:
These are brief, focused lessons that introduce students to new skills or strategies related to reading or writing. - Independent work:
This is time for students to read or write independently, using the skills and strategies they have learned during the mini-lessons. - Conferencing:
This is time for teachers to meet with individual students or small groups to discuss their reading or writing and provide feedback and support. - Sharing:
This is time for students to share their reading or writing with their classmates or the whole class.
These workshops are integrated into the curriculum in a variety of ways. For example, a teacher might use reader's workshop to support the development of reading skills during a unit of inquiry on a specific topic, or they might use writer's workshop to help students write texts related to a particular unit of inquiry.
Overall, the goal of reader's and writer's workshop in a PYP school is to provide students with a rich and engaging learning experience that helps them develop their literacy skills and to use language as a tool for learning, thinking, and expressing themselves.