Learning and Teaching

Literacy - Text Based Units

Over the last year and a half at Corpus Christi School, we have been implementing new pedagogies across different learning areas. In Literacy, we have been using text based units or novel studies to teach reading and writing. This involves students engaging in text reading, learning different comprehension strategies, learning new vocabulary, writing at the sentence level and writing extended text types. Through the use of high-quality texts, students respond to and explore the concepts that are at the core of the subject of English, create their own quality texts, and kick start a lifelong love of reading.

Some of the texts that have been covered this term have been:

Nursery Rhymes 

The Year Prep students have read and reread the nursery rhymes Jack and Jill, Little Boy Blue, Mary Had a Little Lamb and Incy Wincy Spider. This unit had three focuses:

• Texts level focus: Oral descriptions and narrative structure 

• Sentence level focus: Simple sentences delivered orally 

• Word level focus: Phonological awareness (rhyming, syllables, identifying initial and final sounds) 

Gary by Leila Rudge

The Year 1 and 2 students read Gary. They followed Gary as he travelled to different places and had adventures. The unit focused on:

• Word level focus: prepositional phrases (time connectives), first, next, finally

• Sentence level focus: communicating about actions in sequential order

• Text level focus: recounts (diary)

Leo and Ralph by Peter Carnavas

This novel, studied by the Year 3 and 4 Community, is about space, soccer and the best friend you could ever imagine. The community followed Leo as he moved to a new town and his journey to making new friends. The unit focused on figurative language, sentence expansion and narrative writing. 

Wonder by R.J. Palacio

The Year 5 and 6 Community have been enjoying reading Wonder. Wonder was chosen to suit the Wellbeing unit focus for the term. Finding out about August’s life and his transition to school has enabled the students to apply new vocabulary, comprehension skills and write from different perspectives. 

Next term some of the books to be studied will be The Imagineer by Christopher Cheng (Year 1 and 2), The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (Year 3 and 4) and The Last Bear by Hannah Gold (Year 5 and 6). 

The students in Years 3 to 6 will have access to a copy of the book, however, they can bring in their own copies if they have one. 

Deborah Courtney

(Director of Learning and Teaching)