John Therry Catholic College eNewsletter

READING FOR PURPOSE: PALS STRATEGY

As part of our College focus on reading for purpose, we have employed the PALS reading strategy across all KLA areas. The acronym PALS stands for PURPOSE, AUDIENCE, LANGUAGE and STRUCTURE. It is a useful pre-reading strategy whereby students are able to make predictions about the text in front of them. More significantly though, it is a powerful post-reading tool where students are asked to consider questions about why the piece of writing exists, who the piece of writing was written for, what language choices were made and how the piece of writing is structured. Below is an example of how we are using PALS to prompt students and build their capacity to read for purpose:

PALS: Reading Strategy
	P	Purpose: This is the ‘why’. Why does this piece of writing exist? To inform, persuade, entertain, etc.
	A	Audience: Who is this piece of writing written for? Is it written for an academic audience, children, the general public, voters, etc?
	L	Language: What type of language is being used in this piece of writing? Formal, informal, statistics, emotive language…
	S	Structure: How is the piece of writing presented to the audience? Paragraphs, subheadings, pictures, captions

Literacy along with numeracy are the fundamental building blocks of academic success. As Barack Obama once said “Reading is the gateway for children that makes all other learning possible.”

Liz Dadd - Literacy Instructional Coach