Key skill 06 / 08
Being Literate
Reading, writing, and following or telling a story. Words at work in a day, well away from a worksheet.
01What it looks like at home
Reading and writing for real reasons look nothing like a comprehension exercise, and count just the same.
- Reading for the pleasure of it. Properly lost in a book.
- Writing for a real reason: a list, a note, a story she wants to tell.
- Following written instructions to get something done on her own.
- Catching a new word and trying it out. Sometimes wrongly, then righting it.
02From a moment to the log
Here are three real-shaped moments. You write a line when it happens, and Sustenance suggests the skill it shows. That is the whole job.
Finished her book and couldn't stop talking about the ending. Argued that the brother "must have known all along" and flicked back through the pages to find the line that proved it.
Folded an origami crane from a paper instruction sheet, entirely off the diagrams and written steps, and got there on the third attempt without any help.
Wrote the next chapter of an ongoing story about a lighthouse keeper, a page and a half, ending on a cliff-hanger she'd plainly planned in advance.
A line is plenty. You don't tag it, write it up, or grade it. You note what happened, and the skill comes attached. Add a photo if there's one to hand.
03In the report
When review comes round, those scattered moments are already gathered under the skill, written up in plain, assessor-ready language. This is the Being Literate section of a term report, drawn from the moments above and others like them.
Being Literate
10 moments loggedAoife showed Being Literate through reading widely for pleasure and meaning, writing at length for her own purposes, and following text to complete real tasks. She reads closely enough to support an opinion with evidence from the text, sustains an extended piece of imaginative writing, and decodes written instructions independently. Notable examples include defending an interpretation of a novel by returning to the text [11 May], following written and diagrammatic instructions to completion [13 May], and developing a multi-part story with deliberate structure [22 May].
- Drawn from
- 11 MayBacked a reading of a book with evidence from the text.
- 13 MayFollowed written instructions to finish a task alone.
- 22 MayWrote an extended, structured story chapter.
- + 7 moreA shopping list, a thank-you card, a comic strip, a road-sign she queried…
The reading and writing she does for love, not marks, becomes the record. No need to manufacture evidence she is literate.