Year One

Communicating with the Year One Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2022, and welcome your input:

Laura Kelly (Class 1A) Laura.McQueen@education.vic.gov.au

Andrew McFarlane (Class 1B) Andrew.McFarlane3@education.vic.gov.au

Overview of Literacy - Term One 2022

In the Year One classrooms we have be continuing to grow our literacy skills through the teaching and learning of the InitiaLit One program.

Students have been engaging in daily lessons focusing on reading and spelling. After each lesson, students have the chance to consolidate and build upon newly taught concepts through a range of reading and writing activities.

The activities involve phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Every week our Year One students engage in Writer's Workshop. This is where they get to put into practice the spelling skills they have learnt and apply it in a creative and safe way. Each student has their own Writer's Notebook where we keep ideas for writing. The purpose of our Writer's Workshop is to allow our students to write in a safe and supportive environment. We begin the lesson with a short, explicit lesson, where the teacher models the topic or focus. Students are then encouraged to write either independently or with teacher support and guidance.

In the Year One classrooms, we want to foster a love of writing and encourage risk taking when it comes to putting pencil to paper. When correcting student's work we focus upon praising effort and probing questions as to what could be done next. We note any corrections in our observational notes, and use these writing samples to inform our planning for writing.

Students have the chance to share their writing, on our Author's Chair and get feedback from their peers.

Take Home Readers

Take home readers will commence in Week Three. All Year One students will be given two InitiaLit Readers to take home and read nightly. Research has shown that the repeated reading and exposure of texts can boost student's confidence when reading and consolidate their reading skills. We urge families to read the InitiaLit readers daily to help support the learning that is happening within the classroom.

InitiaLit readers will be given on a Monday and are required to be returned on Friday the same week.

If you can, please encourage your child to read other books too.

InitiaLit readers can also be accessed online. The login details are the same as last year. If you need your child's login details please email your child's classroom teacher.

Brain Food

The Year One students have had discussion around the importance of fuelling our bodies and brains with fresh fruit and vegetable when we have our daily brain break at 11:30 each day. Students know that during this 10 minute break we are to eat fresh fruit and fresh vegies only.