Learning & Teaching

Literacy at OLA in 2025

At OLA, we’re always looking for ways to help our students become confident, capable readers and writers. This year, we’ve introduced DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) to assess students’ reading progress. DIBELS is a research based, effective tool used in schools to track how students are developing key reading skills from Prep to Grade 8. It helps teachers identify where students are at and how we can best support them in reading. In the coming weeks, teachers will work in teams to interpret the collected data and use it to inform teaching practice.

We’re also excited to bring in the Heggerty Phonemic Awareness Program for Prep to Grade 2. This program is all about building strong foundations in literacy by helping students hear and play with sounds in words—an essential skill for reading and spelling success.

We’re introducing Spelling Mastery for Grades 3-6, a research based program that builds confident, lifelong spellers. Using a Direct Instruction approach, it explicitly teaches spelling rules, patterns, and strategies in a structured way. Through guided and independent practice, students develop skills step by step. The program blends phonemic (sound based), morphemic (meaning based), and whole word instruction to improve spelling and writing. To support learning, lessons will be streamlined so students work at their instructional spelling level with the right challenge and support.

With these programs, we’re strengthening our approach to teaching reading and writing and ensuring every student has the support they need to grow and succeed. We look forward to seeing their progress and celebrating their achievements along the way!

NAPLAN 2024 for Grade 3 and 5 students scheduled for 12th -24th March

Public demonstration site

The public demonstration tests show the types of questions students will answer and the functionalities that are available in NAPLAN tests. 

Students can do the standard tests or they can do a test with accessible alternative items:

• The visual alternative tests include some items with simplified images (numeracy and reading).
• The tests with audio alternative items have text-based items instead of audio dictation items (conventions of language).
• The colour theme tests have different coloured fonts and backgrounds (all domains).

To try the demonstration tests,clink this link and use the buttons below to choose a year level and then a NAPLAN domain: writing, reading, conventions of language (spelling, grammar and punctuation) or numeracy. Please note that answers are not provided. As all Year 3 students complete the writing test on paper, there is no Year 3 writing demonstration test.

For all online tests, once ‘finish’ is selected or time has run out, the student’s responses will be submitted and will no longer be able to be viewed. 

What’s new in the demonstration tests?

There is now a narrative task and a persuasive task for students to practise. Only one of these tasks will be tested each year, and this will be revealed on the day of the assessment.

Students will now start the conventions of language test with the spelling items and finish with the grammar and punctuation items. 

There are now different narrator voices for the audio items. Some students may benefit from listening to the voice change from one item to another. They can do so by listening to the numeracy items or the audio dictation items in the conventions of language tests. 

Josy Reeder

Learning & Teaching Leader