Curriculum

FOCUS: Learning to Read

Reading is hard work!

"Between the ages of four and nine, your child will have to master some 100 phonics rules, learn to recognize 3,000 words with just a glance, and develop a comfortable reading speed approaching 100 words a minute. They must learn to combine words on the page with a half-dozen squiggles called punctuation into something — 

a voice or image that gives back meaning. 

Paul Kropp

Research indicates that explicit phonics instruction is most effective in helping students learn to read. In simple terms it is the explicit teaching of  graphemes and phonemes. A grapheme is a letter or letter combination that represents a spoken sound (phoneme).

Some examples of graphemes are:

• p as in 'pig'
• sh as in 'ship' or 'cash'
• ea as in 'eat' or 'clear'

Some graphemes may represent more than one phoneme (example: the grapheme "s" can represent the /s/ or /z/ sound). There are 44 phonemes in the English language. As children learn these connections, they're able to "unlock" (decode) words.

Explicit phonics instruction involves

• Breaking down complex skills into smaller tasks 
• Using modeling and think-alouds during instruction
• Providing corrective feedback 
• Distributing practice over time and providing opportunities for review

Here's an example: A teacher displays the vowel team "oa" and explains that the two vowels are working together to represent one long vowel sound, the long o. After discussing this with students, the teacher then has them apply this knowledge to read and write words with "oa." This new sound will be reviewed and practised throughout the week, utilising a variety of engaging activities.

Students read 'decodable' books to practise previous and newly learned sounds. Below is an example from a decodable text. Except for the 'oa' in 'road' (which is new learning), all other words are sounds already learned or Heart Words (words that must be memorised because they are not decodable and/or because of the frequency they occur in most writing).