Literacy News

Literacy - Pause, Prompt and Praise

Starting this week with Prep and Year 5/6, and concluding next week with Year 1/2 and 3/4, families are invited to attend their child’s Parent Engagement in Learning Meetings. 

During these sessions you will hear about how the five specific reading sub-skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension are taught explicitly and systematically so all children become capable readers. (Australian Education Research Organisation, July 2024). 

You will also be guided as to how you can best support your child at home,

One effective strategy is the 3 Ps – Pause, Prompt, and Praise – which will help make home reading a fun and positive experience for everyone. Before starting a book, take a moment to look at the cover and ask your child what they think the book will be about. For longer reads, discuss what has happened so far. Be sure to highlight any new, unfamiliar, or interesting words.

While reading, pause for up to 5 seconds to give your child a chance to self-correct mistakes and practice the word attack skills they've learned at school. You can also wait until the end of the sentence, then either reread it or read together.

If your child doesn't self-correct, offer a general phonetic prompt, such as, "Take another look at the letters in that word." If more help is needed, provide a more specific prompt: "That word has the letters 'igh'—what sound do they make together?" If two prompts still don't help, simply tell them the word and continue reading.

Praise your child often and be specific. Celebrate when they read a difficult word correctly, self-correct an error, read a word correctly after prompting, read without mistakes, read fluently, or read with expression. Take every opportunity to offer praise.

Before finishing reading with your child, ask questions or connect the story to an experience they are familiar with to check for understanding.

Make it fun! Choose books your child enjoys, use silly voices, and repeat interesting vocabulary. The goal is to make reading something your child wants to do. Once they discover the joy of learning to read, they can transition to reading to learn—a skill that will last a lifetime.

Learn more about the science of reading here:: Science of Reading explainer  

Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge

The Victorian Premiers’ Reading Challenge is now open and St John’s Heidelberg is excited to be taking part!

The Challenge is open to all Victorian children from birth to Year 10 and aims to help young readers develop a lifelong love of reading. It is not a competition; it is a personal challenge for children to read a set number of books by 5 September 2025. 

Students from Prep to Year 2 are encouraged to read or ‘experience’ 30 books with their parents and teachers. Students from Year 3 to Year 10 are challenged to read 15 books. Due to the amazing number of books read last year, we have decided this year to give house points for every book read beyond the challenge. All children who meet the Challenge will receive a certificate of achievement signed by the Victorian Premier and former Premiers.

This year, the Challenge is celebrating its 20th anniversary with the theme ‘20 Years of Words and Wonder’ and a year of special activities. Since it began in 2005, more than 4.5 million young readers have taken part and together read more than 63 million books!

Classroom teachers will shortly share usernames and passwords with students/families to begin. For more information please go to Victorian Premiers' Reading Challenge  

Happy reading!

Writer of the Week Awards - A call out to all young authors at St John’s! 

Please send through any writing pieces that you are proud of and would like to feature in our newsletters. All types of writing is welcomed and a certificate will be awarded to all contributors. This year there will also be house points awarded to students who, through their teacher or family, submit a piece of writing for the newsletter.

So come on, pick up your writing tools and write away!

Send all pieces to cbandiera@sjheidelberg.catholic.edu.au with your name and class or pass it on to your class teacher.

Check out this weeks Writer of the Week:-