Reading to Learn Training

Teachers from the Junior Prep, the Boys’ College and the Girls’ College worked alongside the Grade 6 and 7 subject teachers from the Girls’ Prep.  Some of these teachers also teach at the Thandulwazi Academy. 

The focus of the Reading to Learn methodology is to develop teachers’ ability to help students acquire subject specific academic literacy – to enable them to access complex texts more easily, to enhance analysis and synthesis skills, and to write proficiently according to the conventions of different subjects.  In effect, every subject teacher, including teachers of Additional Languages, is enabled to become a literacy teacher thereby empowering students to attain greater levels of skill in negotiating difficult texts – to ‘set them free’ from dependence on teachers (or Google).  Reading to Learn is used all over the world in a variety of educational settings from Foundation phase right up to tertiary level.

The St Stithians staff were joined in the workshop by Dr Carol McDonald from UNISA, Dr Sarah Jones and Dr Julia Lawrence from the University of Hull in the UK, and staff and students from the University of Johannesburg.

We look forward to the training continuing in May and to seeing our students attain even higher levels of proficiency in academic literacy.