our work

short cuts to literacy

Short Cuts to Literacy

Short Cuts to Literacy was developed in partnership with Creating Success - the Education Action Zone (EAZ) in Lewisham. The core objective of the project is to improve young people's writing in relation to character development, story structure and descriptive writing. To meet this objective, Short Cuts to Literacy uses film and moving image as a stimulus to help develop children's literacy skills and increases their understanding of written text including stories and film scripts.   Although traditionally defined as the ability to read and write, literacy is now understood to be the ability to locate, evaluate, use and communicate using a spectrum of media resources including text, visual, audio and video. Children today are visually literate, inherently know what is happening in film and are very sophisticated viewers. With this in mind, Short Cuts To Literacy balances watching pre-selected film clips, discussion and presentation with an exploration of the central ideas through drama. A wide range of films and film-clips are used, such as, black and white films, foreign language films (with the subtitles off - received excitedly and positively), animation, live action films and films that may be more recognisable to the children. At the end of the project, participants vote on the clips they have enjoyed the most and the results often surprise their teachers, as the students select sub-titled or arthouse films most readily.  Each session focuses on a different aspect of the films being studied with topics that include: people, places, plots and problems. Although one of the primary objectives of the workshop is to engage more reluctant literacy learners, the project has proven successful in improving the quality of young people's writing and increasing students' attainment.