The National Literacy Learning Progression can be used at a whole school, team or individual teacher level. However, the progression provides maximum student learning benefits when used as part of a whole-school strategy that involves professional learning and collaboration between teachers. Further advice on how to maximise the benefits of the progression is available on the progressions home page.
The progressions can be used to identify the literacy capability of individual students within and across the 12 sub-elements. In any class there may be a wide range of student abilities. Individual students may not neatly fit within a particular level of the progressions and may straddle two or more levels within a progression. While the progression provides a logical sequence, not all students will progress through every level in a uniform manner.
When making decisions about a student’s literacy development, teachers select relevant indicators. It is important to remember indicators at a level are not a prescriptive list and the progression is not designed to be used as a checklist. Teacher judgements about student literacy capability should be based on a range of learning experiences. Observations, discussions, performances or tasks from any learning area can provide suitable evidence of a student’s literacy capability.
Teachers can use the progressions to support the development of targeted teaching and learning programs and to set clearer learning goals for individual students. For example, teaching decisions can be based on judgements about student capability that relate to a single indicator rather than all indicators at a level.