Writing at St Joseph

Structured Literacy News

It has been a busy week for Literacy, with our Year 3 and Year 5 students completing their NAPLAN assessments, alongside our Prep Parent Information Night focused on decodable take-home books.

This is always an exciting time as we partner with parents to support the formal reading journey. Over the past eight weeks, our Prep teachers have explicitly taught initial phonemes (sounds) through structured MSL (phonics) sessions. Students have learned the sounds represented by graphemes (written forms), how to form these graphemes, and the early stages of blending sounds together.

They are now developing automaticity - instant recall -of these phonemes and have begun the formal process of reading and writing short words using the sounds they know. The next step is for students to read decodable texts that include only the phonemes they have been explicitly taught.

Many families with older children will remember the excitement of bringing home a first reading book or list - an important milestone in every child’s learning journey.

We thank our Prep parents for your enthusiasm and ongoing support throughout this process.

The St. Joseph’s Writing Wall

Please take the time to enjoy two very well written narratives by Spencer and Alexander in Year 6.