Building literacy capabilities for comprehension in the curriculum: A framework for teachers

Abstract

Primary and secondary classroom teachers are charged with the responsibility of ensuring they cater for literacy in all subject or learning areas. This can be a challenging task as there is little direction about how to do this in the General capabilities of the Australian Curriculum document. This article provides a framework to assist classroom teachers with identifying literacy demands and building literacy capabilities that can support students' learning, regardless of the subject area. In this article, I will discuss the three stages of the framework: identifying the literacy demands for reading comprehension in example texts and activities, highlighting with these examples how to build literacy capabilities, and finally drawing upon the implications of the role of reflection in literacy teaching.