This element is about receptive language and involves students using skills and strategies to access and interpret spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts.
Students navigate, read and view texts using applied topic knowledge, vocabulary, word and visual knowledge. They listen and respond to spoken audio and multimodal texts, including listening for information, listening to carry out tasks and listening as part of participating in classroom activities and discussions. Students use a range of strategies to comprehend, interpret and analyse these texts, including retrieving and organising literal information, making and supporting inferences and evaluating information and points of view. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- navigate, read and view learning area texts
- listen and respond to learning area texts
- interpret and analyse learning area texts.
The element of Comprehending texts can apply to students at any point in their schooling. The beginning of the learning sequence for this element has been extended by four extra levels (Levels 1a to 1d) to describe in particular the early development of communication skills. The descriptions for Comprehending texts at these levels apply across the elements of Text knowledge, Grammar knowledge, Word knowledge and Visual knowledge.
Level 5
Typically by the end of Year 8, students:
Navigate read and view learning area texts
navigate, read and view a variety of challenging subject-specific texts with a wide range of graphic representations
Listen and respond to learning area texts
listen to extended spoken and audio texts, including audio-visual texts, respond to and interpret stated and implied meanings, and evaluate information and ideas
Interpret and analyse learning area texts
interpret and evaluate information, identify main ideas and supporting evidence, and analyse different perspectives using comprehension strategies
This element is about expressive language and involves students composing different types of texts for a range of purposes as an integral part of learning in all curriculum areas.
These texts include spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts that explore, communicate and analyse information, ideas and issues in the learning areas. Students create formal and informal texts as part of classroom learning experiences including group and class discussions, talk that explores and investigates learning area topics, and formal and informal presentations and debates. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- compose spoken, written, visual and multimodal learning area texts
- use language to interact with others
- deliver presentations.
The element of Composing texts can apply to students at any point in their schooling. The beginning of the learning sequence for this element has been extended by four extra levels (Levels 1a to 1d) to describe in particular the development of communication skills. The descriptions for Composing texts at these levels apply across the elements of Text knowledge, Grammar knowledge, Word knowledge and Visual knowledge.
The following areas of knowledge apply to both processes.
Level 5
Typically by the end of Year 8, students:
Compose spoken written visual and multimodal learning area texts
compose and edit longer sustained learning area texts
Use language to interact with others
use pair, group and class discussions and formal and informal debates as learning tools to explore ideas, test possibilities, compare solutions, rehearse ideas and arguments in preparation for creating texts
Deliver presentations
plan, research, rehearse and deliver presentations on learning area topics, sequencing selected content and multimodal elements for accuracy and their impact on the audience
This element involves students understanding how the spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts they compose and comprehend are structured to meet the range of purposes needed in the learning areas.
Students understand the different types of text structures that are used within learning areas to present information, explain processes and relationships, argue and support points of view and investigate issues. They develop understanding of how whole texts are made cohesive through various grammatical features that link and strengthen the text’s internal structure. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- use knowledge of text structures
- use knowledge of text cohesion.
Level 5
Typically by the end of Year 8, students:
Use knowledge of text cohesion
use knowledge of word functions to make connections in texts
Use knowledge of text structures
use wide knowledge of the structure and features of learning area texts to comprehend and compose texts, using creative adaptations of text structures and conventions for citing others
This element involves students understanding the role of grammatical features in the construction of meaning in the texts they compose and comprehend.
Students understand how different types of sentence structures present, link and elaborate ideas, and how different types of words and word groups convey information and represent ideas in the learning areas. They gain understanding of the grammatical features through which opinion, evaluation, point of view and bias are constructed in texts. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- use knowledge of sentence structures
- use knowledge of words and word groups
- express opinion and point of view.
Level 5
Typically by the end of Year 8, students:
Express opinion and point of view
use language to evaluate an object, action or text, and language that is designed to persuade the reader/viewer
Use knowledge of sentence structures
control a range of simple, compound and complex sentence structures to record, explain, question, argue, describe and link ideas, evidence and conclusions
Use knowledge of words and word groups
recognise and use aspects of language to suggest possibility, probability, obligation and conditionality
This element involves students understanding the increasingly specialised vocabulary and spelling needed to compose and comprehend learning area texts.
Students develop strategies and skills for acquiring a wide topic vocabulary in the learning areas and the capacity to spell the relevant words accurately. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- understand learning area vocabulary
- use spelling knowledge.
Level 5
Typically by the end of Year 8, students:
Use spelling knowledge
spell specialist topic words and use knowledge of word origins, base words, prefixes and suffixes and unusual letter combinations to spell correctly
Understand learning area vocabulary
use a wide range of new specialist and topic vocabulary to contribute to the specificity, authority and abstraction of texts
This element involves students understanding how visual information contributes to the meanings created in learning area texts.
Students interpret still and moving images, graphs, tables, maps and other graphic representations, and understand and evaluate how images and language work together in distinctive ways in different curriculum areas to present ideas and information in the texts they compose and comprehend. In developing and acting with literacy, students:
- understand how visual elements create meaning.