Literacy

Grade One

This term, our Year 1 students are trialling a revised literacy structure as part of our school's ongoing work to strengthen the teaching of writing. This approach provides dedicated time for the explicit teaching and practice of the skills students need to become confident readers and writers.

Phonemic Awareness: Students are trialling the Heggerty program, which uses short, engaging oral activities to develop awareness of sounds in spoken language. Students practise recognising rhymes, identifying, blending and segmenting sounds, and manipulating sounds and syllables in words to strengthen their foundational reading and spelling skills.

Phonics: Through our Sounds-Write program, students continue to develop their understanding of the relationships between sounds and letters, applying this knowledge to read and spell words accurately and automatically.

High Frequency Words: As part of daily phonics sessions, students continue practising reading and spelling frequently occurring words to develop accuracy and automaticity.

Reading Fluency: Through regular practice, including paired fluency reading, students are developing their reading accuracy, expression and automaticity to support fluent reading and comprehension.

Handwriting: Students are practising correct letter formation, sizing and spacing to develop fluent and automatic handwriting, allowing greater focus on communicating their ideas.

Literature: Students are exploring a range of quality texts, including Migaloo, the White Whale, Kind, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Gruffalo and more. Through shared reading, vocabulary and comprehension activities, students are developing their understanding of texts and exploring how authors use language.

Syntax: Students are explicitly learning how sentences work, including identifying subjects and predicates, using conjunctions to connect ideas and expanding sentences to add detail. Through regular practice, students are developing their ability to construct, combine and manipulate sentences to communicate their ideas with increasing clarity and complexity.

Writing Studies: Students are focusing on persuasive and procedural writing, learning to express and justify opinions, provide clear instructions and organise ideas. They are applying their sentence-writing skills to create increasingly structured and purposeful texts.

Grade 2

This term, our Grade twos will continue our established practices through our daily Core Literacy hour, explicitly teaching the essential phonemic awareness skills, conceptual knowledge and code knowledge students need to develop as confident readers. Students will say, hear and identify sounds, match sounds to their corresponding spellings, and manipulate sound cards and other resources to strengthen the connections between sounds and print. We will also continue building our knowledge of high-frequency words to support reading fluency.

During partner reading, students will work with their new fluency partners to practise reading aloud, develop expression and accuracy, and support one another through Glow and Grow feedback. A Glow celebrates something a reader has done well, while a Grow identifies a skill they can continue to develop.

In handwriting, we will continue practising correct letter formation, focusing on developing consistent and legible handwriting.

During Writing, students will explore what makes a great sentence by breaking sentences down into their key components and investigating how words work together to communicate meaning. Building on this understanding, students will begin developing their skills in writing simple paragraphs centred around one main idea. We will continue developing our understanding of Single Paragraph Outlines (SPOs) to help students organise their ideas, structure their writing and create cohesive paragraphs. We will also continue developing our reading comprehension skills, learning to read closely, understand texts and think more deeply about what we read.