Dear Families

At St Joseph’s we understand how vital literacy skills are to support all learning and use evidence-based methods to ensure all students succeed and thrive in this area. In December 2022, teachers embarked on a new learning journey with the intention to build their skills in the way they teach literacy across the school so that children will flourish in this area.

Explicit and systematic teaching of fundamental knowledge and skills is the pillar of our approach to provide the best possible environment for all students to develop the ability to read, write and understand the rules that govern the English language.

As you will have read in the Foundation and Grade 1/2 Curriculum Notes, students will not be bringing readers home at this time.

For your child to become a successful reader, we need to ensure that the sounds of the English language are taught explicitly and are practised.

Teachers are spending this week and next assessing your child in order to cater for your child’s specific learning needs. It is after this information has been collected that teachers will begin to send home readers that your child can read.

Until then, we are encouraging you to share a picture story book with your child. After reading the book ask them to tell you about the characters in the book and what happened. It might be that after next week, games are sent home with your child to play with you. These games will support what they know about reading.

SIGHT WORDS

Families will be accustomed to ‘sight words’ being sent home. These contain letters/sounds that have not been taught yet. It is important that we teach these in the same way as any word (not memorisation of the whole word which has been our approach). These words will be explicitly taught in the classroom and when your child has mastered the words they will be added to their home reading.

We appreciate that this is a significant change in the way you are used to supporting your child at home. I assure you that it is a change for most staff at St Joseph’s also. We have invested in engaging resources for staff and students in order for this shift to be successful. There is also an online library that we have subscribed to. Teachers will assign learning to the children in good time.

MIDDLE/SENIOR STUDENTS

Children that need additional support alongside their classroom learning will participate in a tutoring program that will be facilitated here at St Joseph’s. Families will be notified if their child has been identified as needing this support. This support will be on the same model as the explicit and systematic support in the Junior classes.

As children move through the school from the Junior Unit, there will be a more noticeable change in the structure of the literacy lessons in the middle and senior classes.

We will share more information about this approach during the year, so we ask you to keep an eye out on the newsletter, daily messages and social media.

If you have any questions, please feel free to speak to myself or your child’s teacher.

Kind regards,

Rochester Community News