Professional Development

Exciting Literacy Journey Begins at Langwarrin Primary School!

Some of you may have seen or read in the media recently, that the Victorian Government has announced that there would be an updated Teaching and Learning Model for all government schools. This is to be implemented from next year and focuses on what's known as "explicit teaching".

This will see all students from Prep to Year 2 taught reading using synthetic phonics, which helps students break up words into individual sounds.

All Victorian state schools will be required to use this approach when teaching reading.

In light of the recent announcement, we felt it was a good time to let you know that Langwarrin Primary School has embarked on a 3-5-year journey to enhance our literacy program with the guidance of Literacy Consultant, Karina Stocker.

All staff recently participated in a full day of professional development with Karina. Throughout the day we developed our knowledge about Explicit Direct Instruction, the Foundations of Evidence-Based Reading Instruction and Cognitive Load Theory. 

We have already started the process of training our Junior School Teachers in a new systematic synthetic phonics program called UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute). This research-based and evidence-driven program provides a structured and explicit approach to teaching foundational reading skills.

The implementation of the UFLI program will begin next term for Prep and Year 1, and in Term 4 for Year 2. This program targets the following foundational reading skills:

• Blending and segmentation practice
• Accuracy and automaticity of letter-sound correspondences
• Decoding automaticity of words
• Explicit instruction of new concepts
• Decoding and encoding regular words
• Reading and spelling irregular words
• Reading and writing connected text

We know that these initiatives will significantly benefit our students, helping them develop strong reading skills and a love for learning. We are all very excited about this teaching and learning journey we are now on.