A selection of various graphic organisers and information transfers used at Tamaki College

This document was sent to staff in order to inspire the use of or the creation of graphic organisers. This is a quick way to explicitly teach reading/comprehension skills. Students are provided with a goal for reading a text. They are also required to reread the text and to alter their reading speed as they read the text. Often these three skills are weak or they are missing from a students reading routine. In using a graphic organiser we are helping students strengthen those skills.

Graphic Organisers -How to read a Maths Question

This Graphic Organiser works equally well in Science and Technology.


It’s no exaggeration to say that every year, I hear the same complaint from someone in the Maths department. Senior students having completed an external assessment, explain to a teacher how they didn’t do very well in the exam, because although they could do the maths they did not understand the question. Accepting the need to teach reading skills in maths is the first step to improving mathematical outcomes. Text avoidance is a major problem for our students. This method requires students to engage in a reading task instead of waiting for someone to read it to them.


The graphic organiser looks mainly at the language of a maths question. This is a quick way to explicitly teach reading comprehension skills. Students are

-provided with a goal for reading a text

-provided with a method, first look for……..next…..

-required to reread the text

-required to alter their reading speed as they read the text

-able to check how accurately they have comprehended the maths problem

Often these three skills are weak or entirely absent from a student’s reading routine. In using a graphic organiser we are helping students strengthen their comprehension skills.

Using the I Do, We Do, You Do Together and finally You Do, format (as a test) the teacher is monitoring that students are actually completing each grid successfully. When I worked with Ms David and her Year 10s, I asked a number of students to separate when we worked on the final, test yourself, grid.

Asttle Writing and the direct link to the CAA Writing Assessment

I've been asked about the connection between asttle writing and the CAA writing exam. Some of the questions from the 2024 CAA exam paper are almost identical to the questions used in the asttle tests. I've copied here the questions relating to a community facility and council supplied facilities.


The marking rubrics are similar but the asttle is designed to provide a lot more detail for students in terms of strengthes and weaknesses. The CAA rubric is not designed with studentd feedback in mind, its a more pass and fail system. Both offer teachers a way to improve or develop the teaching in order to address the learning needs of thier students.


I'm quoting one of the markers from 2024, who said “In terms of punctuation, as long as they use a capital letter and a full stop, that's a tick.”

Teaching Reading Skills linked to the CAAs i.e reading comprehension skills

Strategic Literacy Plan 2025

Science and Technology Lessons with Literacy Tasks -We do and You do

These lessons represent an major shift and suggest a considerable amouint of 'buy in'by staff of the need to include literacy tasks in all lessons. A physical comparison was made between texts and worksheets taken off the internt and lessons created to address the learning needs of our students.

Science and Technology Lesson Enhancement Workshop

This is the bottom line. How do we get students to actually read a text in class. Find a disciplinary text, chunk it, add a vocabulary exercise, a survey question, a scan and predict task, keyword highlighing and a summary or exit strategy. See Bilboa as a basic example.