Literacy involves an understanding of language and the ability to use it effectively to access knowledge, play an active part in society and contribute to personal growth. Listening, talking, reading and writing are the language processes through which students make meaning.
Children’s experience of literacy is very dependent on the interactions that they have with print and language in their home and other significant environments such as school. Teachers provide a range of experiences to enable students to develop literacy skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The foundations for literacy success in the more formal environment of school are well and truly laid through children’s home and early childhood experiences.
Our students from Pre Primary to Year 2 are immersed in the InitiaLit phonics program which guides them through a structured series of lessons and activities to enable them to build solid foundations for decoding text. Building on from this, we utilise MiniLit as decoding intervention program for students from Early Childhood and MultiLit for students from Years 3-6 who need extra support with reading.
Students from Years 3-6 continue to develop their phonological awareness and spelling with the assistance of the Spelling Mastery program. The Accelerated Reader Resources compliment our reading program by providing motivating and engaging reading resources, activities and assessments.
Writing has been a focus for growth for us in 2022. We’ve developed and implemented our Sentence Structure Scope and Sequence document and have adopted many of the best-practices from the Writing Revolution. We utilise 7 Steps to Writing Success as our whole-school writing resource and assess student progress using Brightpath.
We have high expectations for our students that they will begin to read and write with confidence in pre-primary. Our use of a synthetic phonics approach has a significant impact on children’s early reading and spelling skills. The value of reading to your child every day cannot be underestimated.