Literacy Lowdown

As the Primary School Literacy Learning Specialist, my role is to lead consistent, evidence-based literacy instruction across the school, grounded in the Science of Reading. Students are taught through explicit, systematic phonics using Sounds-Write, alongside a strong focus on handwriting, spelling, sentence-level writing, and daily review. Talk for Writing, Read2Learn, and new literature units further support oral language, comprehension, vocabulary, and high-quality writing.

At school, we use two types of books to support reading: decodable books and levelled books. Decodable books are used for learning how to read because they match the sounds your child has been taught and allow children to practise sounding out and blending words.

When reading decodable books at home, encourage your child to look at each letter, say the sounds, and blend them together (for example, cat → /c/ /a/ /t/ → cat). We encourage sounding out and trying again if it doesn’t sound right, rather than guessing from pictures or memorising words.

Levelled books are mainly for enjoyment, vocabulary, and comprehension. You can read to your child, read together, or take turns, and talk about the story. Using both decodable and levelled books helps build strong reading skills and a lifelong love of reading.