Literacy 

Meet our Intervention Staff

My name is Elizabeth Fernandez and I have been a classroom teacher at  the School of the Good Shepherd for many years.  During this time, it was a privilege to build strong relationships with children and families and teach many young individuals and watch them blossom and grow into independent thinkers, learners and fine young individuals. 

Since 2021, I have moved into a new role at SoGS as the Reading Discovery/ Intervention teacher (Grades 3-6).  I particularly enjoy our student-teacher conversations when we connect to a text with our experiences.  During these lessons, we learn, we share and impart knowledge, and we have fun too.

I love being a teacher. It’s not a job for me -  it's a passion, It’s a vocation! 

My name is Liz Sarpa and it is a privilege to join the SoGS community as a Reading Intervention Teacher in Prep-2 this year. I absolutely love all things Literacy and Numeracy and am passionate about working with students to build strong foundations in these areas. I feel blessed to be spending my days with such beautiful, kind, hard-working students on developing their reading skills and achieving their learning goals. I especially love watching students grow in confidence and find joy in reading as we celebrate their many successes together. 

Hi everyone, my name is Josie Ceddia and I’ve been teaching at School of the Good Shepherd for a very long time.  In fact some of my first students are now parents!  

It's been a privilege and a pleasure to work in such a beautiful, caring and wonderful school environment.  Over the years I have had many different roles here at the School of The Good Shepherd including Teacher Librarian and LOTE. I  am currently the Literacy extension teacher, working with small groups of children who love to learn and want to uplevel their literacy skills.  I love the deep learning we share and the amazing discussions that come from our small group learning. I’m also delighted to be  the New Arrivals Teacher helping our refugee children settle into our community and teaching them English as their second language. Teaching is not a job, it is a passion that I have been fortunate enough to pursue and I love watching children grow in their learning. 

Literacy News

The focus for the first month of school has been to develop strong relationships between teachers and students, setting up classroom expectations, learning about and cultivating a safe, rich learning environment and developing routines and structures for learning. 

In Literacy, we have had a focus on setting up the Literacy routine and structure which includes:

• Whole class instruction
• Small group targetted teaching (teachers targeting student’s specific learning needs)
• One on one student/teacher conferences (conferencing with students on their personal learning goals in Literacy)
• Collaborative and independent learning activities/experiences
• Stamina reading (reading a book for a sustained period of time)
• Engaging in feedback practices to monitor growth and progress as well as identifying ‘where to next?’ in a student’s learning journey.  

Our students in Year 3 - 6 have engaged in a range of assessment practices to work closely with the teachers to identify what students know, can do and need to learn from the Victorian Curriculum. These assessments include:

• Fountas & Pinnell Reading and Comprehension
• Essential Assessment: Literacy (Reading & Viewing)
• Writing sample assessment using the ‘Australian Criterion Scale for Writing)
• Reading Doctor Phonics instruction (Year 3 & 4)
• Speaking & Listening: Accountable Talk assessments

Chris and I have loved working closely with teachers and students in the classroom to support development of routines and structures in Literacy. Our Professional Learning meetings have included working with teachers to continue building their capacity to anaylse student learning data and use this to inform their teaching practice to design learning experiences that cater to the needs of all learners in their classrooms. 

Jemma McVeigh (3 - 6 Literacy Leader)

The Prep - Year Two teachers have been busy working with your children to assess their literacy skills and set goals for learning. A range of assessments have been used including Fountas and Pinnell Reading and Comprehension assessments, Record of Oral language and Letter Identification. 

The teachers use the data collected from these assessments to plan our whole class learning and targetted teaching groups.

Home Reading has begun this week.  Your child should be bringing home a book to read with you each evening. The focus for the next two weeks is establishing the routine of selecting a book, reading at night and returning the folder the next day.  Please assist your child by listening to them read, recording the reading in their diary and ensuring their folder is returned to their school bag.  

This year the Prep and Year Ones have new home reading diaries to record their nightly reading.  These diaries are not only colourful and appealling to the children but also contain useful information for parents and helpful tips for reading at home.  

RAZ KIDS is coming!  Our tech support is in the process of rolling over and updating our classes.  As soon as this is finalised we will let you know.  RAZ KIDS is another great learning tool for reading at home.

Chris Catterall (Prep - 2 Literacy Leader)