Learning and Teaching

Last year, I updated our school community on the key components that are essential for reading. They were oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. 

In Prep, the children have been engaged in learning the sounds that letters make. As we follow a synthetic phonics program, they have learned the following groups so far:

1. S, A, T, I, P, N

2. C, K, E, H, R, M, D

As part of this, they use Jolly Cassroom. This is an interactive program which involves the children in many different learning activities. Step 1 focuses on the five key skills of Jolly Phonics to teach reading and writing.

• Learning the letter sounds - Children are taught the main 42 letter sounds. This includes alphabet sounds and digraphs such as /sh/, /th/, /ai/, and /ue/.

• Learning letter formation - Using different multi-sensory methods, children learn how to form and write the letters.

• Blending - Children are taught how to blend the sounds together to read and write new words.

• Segmenting - Children learn to identify and break down the sounds in words.

• Tricky Words - Children learn that there are irregular spellings for certain words.

Last week, the children were using their whiteboards to practice spelling words. These words included the sounds from the first two groups.  They did a great job at hearing the sounds!

Deborah Courtney

(Director of Learning and Teaching)