Learning and Teaching

The Trinity Learning Journey

As you might have seen on the news or read in the paper, MACS (Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools) are on an exciting journey to transform Catholic Education in Melbourne. We are wholeheartedly on that journey with them. 

Over the last year and a half we have developed understanding and invested new and exciting approaches to learning literacy and numeracy. 

Below is an overview of explicit instruction provided by MACS and while we continue to improve through meetings, reviewing best practice and different learning opportunities, this is now standard practice at Trinity.

What is explicit instruction? 

Explicit instruction involves teachers introducing complex skills in small steps, with clear explanations and demonstrations of what students are expected to learn. Students then practise what they learned and receive feedback from their teacher until the skill is mastered. 

What is the evidence supporting explicit instruction? 

Cognitive science research shows that most students need formal instruction to learn what’s called ‘biologically secondary knowledge’, such as reading, writing and maths. 

Because students can only process a limited amount of new information at once, cognitive overload can occur when they try to process too many new concepts without prior instruction or scaffolding. Explicit instruction breaks new information into manageable parts. 

We design lessons that begin with teacher-guided instruction and gradually shift responsibility to students through modelling and guided practice. This approach ensures that students achieve independent practice only after foundational knowledge is firmly established. Knowledge is like mental Velcro – new knowledge ‘sticks’ to prior knowledge, building understanding from one year level to the next. 

How do we teach reading and writing? 

Our (and MACS') vision for reading instruction involves: 

• phonemic awareness – understanding that speech is made up of words and sounds
• phonics – knowledge of the letter–sound relationships and the ability to use these relationships to decode words 
• fluency – ability to read accurately and quickly to derive meaning from text 
• vocabulary – understanding word meanings in isolation and in context 
• comprehension – ability to understand and derive meaning from text. 

What is phonics? 

Phonics is a method of teaching reading and spelling by explicitly linking letters or letter combinations (graphemes) with their corresponding sounds (phonemes). For example, children learn the sounds for ‘s’, ‘a’ and ‘t’, allowing them to spell and sound out words like ‘at’, ‘as’ and ‘sat’. 

English spelling is complex, with many letters and letter combinations representing multiple sounds (e.g. ‘ea’ in ‘heap’ and ‘head’). Phonics instruction begins with the most common letter–sound relationships, as they can be used to read many new words, then moves to less frequent ones. 

Research suggests that learning 60 to 100 of these relationships, along with some common sight words, enables children to read independently. 

How do we teach maths? 

Our vision for mathematics instruction involves: 

• developing number sense – understanding quantities and numbers, and how to represent them with objects and numerals 
• building fluency – mastering basic arithmetic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division 
• teaching mathematics concepts – understanding the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of mathematics in combination with procedures and rules 
• using concrete materials – using physical resources and visual representations to show concepts and procedures 
• using problem-solving strategies – organising work based on the structure of a problem 
• using explicit instruction – providing opportunities for students to explain their work and thinking in oral and written forms 
• using precise mathematics language – using correct terminology when discussing steps for solving problems.

Ru Lameijn, Learning and Teaching Leader