Literacy 

Welcome to the first Literacy focused newsletter piece of 2021! This year I feel it is especially important for us to embrace the joys of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. For our children and for us, literacy is the way we can express ourselves, escape and learn. I am drawn to the quote below.

For our children, we want to be able to nurture a love of literature so that despite the fact that we can’t travel, we can experience other worlds. Books can be a comfort, a place of safety whether they are read aloud or independently. 

At St Columba’s, our ultimate goal is to support all students to master literacy skills so they can experience success across the curriculum, participate fully in society and find joy in the world of words.

In working towards this larger goal, we have narrowed down some focus areas for 2021.

 These include:

• A focus on ensuring our environments are print-rich and relevant
• Consolidation of our spelling approach (Read, Write, Inc and SMART Spelling) to ensure the systematic development of phonics and knowledge of etymology, and morphology
• Consolidation of our ability to help students understand and use sophisticated grammatical structures when writing to achieve their purpose. For this, we emphasise the deconstruction and analysis of high-quality literature
• Verifying that our students are able to name a variety of reading strategies as research shows that if we can name a strategy and explain it we are better able to utilise it
• To look for opportunities to develop literacy skills within the context of units of inquiry

I look forward to sharing with you our progress. This year my aim is to give you an insight into literacy at St Columba’s in 2021 and the fabulous learning that is happening within this area.