New Approaches to Literacy Erasmus Project

Project Title

New Approaches to Literacy

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Integration of refugees; Inclusion – equity

Project Summary

The main objectives of the project New Approaches to Literacy envisaged developing basic skills, like reading and writing through networking and learning from each other within the project. The topic of the project largely answered the needs of our students, covering a wide range of ages, at both primary and secondary levels.
The basis of the network for exchanging reading and writing skills and discussing literacy was established during the first meeting in Sweden, where teachers from Romania, Poland and Turkey took part in the training programme regarding the Reading to Learn teaching method, with the purpose of encouraging and facilitating learning by means of using the text as a teaching resource and via implementing the strategy within each partner school and adapting it to the specific educational needs of each school.
The teachers’ skills were improved by learning the new methodology R2L. The professional learning programme provided teachers with new knowledge about language and pedagogy, which guided them to plan their lessons with confidence and independence and in successful learning and allowed them to integrate all of this within the existing classroom curriculum.

There were three different learning activities for students with teachers as accompanying participants (blended mobility for school learners), in which students from the four countries met and took part in various activities.
The first, hosted by Romania, was the ground of unfolding activities in which the method Reading to Learn was applied in connection to drama activities, thus encouraging the exchange of good practices and the inter-knowledge of cultures.
The blended mobility for school learners held in Poland placed the accent on applying the R2L method in IT context by means of using ICT. The next blended mobility for school learners held in Turkey was a good
activity, which reinterpreted the R2L method in games and drama activities connected to important cultural symbols from Turkey, Romania, Poland and Sweden.
The last meeting in Sweden represented the proper context for partners to analyse and present the impact of R2L method on teachers, students and local communities in the four schools. During this meeting, the teachers discussed R2L as a preventive and inclusive model compared to other methods used in the participating countries. The implementation of Reading to Learn as a transformational classroom pedagogy and methodology included the change of traditional patterns in the classroom.

A way to emphasize the importance of added value when it comes to the project being international compared to national, is the insights of Fullan and Quinn (2016); ”Groups are powerful, which means they can be powerfully wrong. Getting together without the discipline and specificity of collective work can be grand waste of time.”

During the international project NAL it became obvious that there are many different ways to apply the same method.
One dimension of the differences was cultural, another the school systems. While in the participating countries the focus was on discussing the method after applying it and wanting to compare it with other available Reading methods, in Sweden the main focus was on applying the method. This due to the Swedish school system, which has allowed teachers to teach in their private ways in their classrooms. In such school system it is difficult toncreate a community of best practice, where the teachers examine different pedagogical methods together. Fortunately, NAL took place when the R2L method was already applied in the Swedish hosting school. Although the exchange of taking part of how the schools applied the method, gave the Swedish participants a lot to discuss and ponder about. Thus the awareness of the context, i.e. the school system and the cultural differences, increased while the project was proceeding.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88550 Eur

Project Coordinator

Dialogskolan & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Scoala Gimnaziala “George Emil Palade”
• Holy Family NS
• Miejski Zespol Szkol Szkola Podstawowa nr.1
• Ozel Tema Ilkokulu