Principal's Message

Dear Students, Parents, Carers and Families

READING AT MARAMBA!

Reading is a complex process that involves both learning to decode texts and learning to make meaning from texts. Six components, essential to reading instruction have been identified. The Big Six are:

Oral Language: Speaking and listening to build a foundation for reading.

Vocabulary: Knowing and using an expanding range of words.

Phonological awareness: Building awareness of the sounds of language including rhythm, rhymes, and syllables.

Phonics: Understanding and knowing the relationship between letters and sounds.

Comprehension: Using specific strategies to understand a text.

Fluency: Reading with accuracy, expression, and appropriate pace

At Maramba, to teach reading in the junior school, we use the synthetic phonics approach using the program Little Learners Love Literacy. Children learn to identify 42 sounds and then blend or synthesise the sounds to make words, enabling them to read. Research shows that the most successful readers start with a synthetic phonics approach.

The students love engaging in these sessions. 

A special thanks to our FOM who devoted a lot of time to covering our take home decodable books at the start of the year. Our students have really benefitted from being able to practice their decoding skills at home.

If you would like some support to assist your child with reading at home, please watch this video from Little Learners Love Literacy:

https://youtu.be/RPJ-rC_PcaU?si=pcDU2Hie0qDJV9kf

The next phase of implementing our phonics program is having parents assist us with reading in our junior school classrooms. Please note that volunteers may end up not spending time in a class with their own child as they will be working across the Foundation – Year 2 area. If you would be interested in assisting, please record your expression of interest through this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScYu2Q0aZbVnbTOJnuWQ-Q_iNstcdXUzHcbZFjZqEp1Ki9FCw/viewform?usp=sf_link

DEMOCRACY SAUSAGES!

Our volunteers fought the wind and rain all morning to sell democracy sausages at the weekends Referendum.  A very big warm thank you to those who braved the cold as we tried all sorts of ideas to defend ourselves from the wind until we couldn’t defend our sausages anymore and moved inside the gym. 

Thank you to the following volunteers:

Take care and stay safe!

Kind regards,

Darren Wallace

Principal