Literacy
InitiaLit
This year we will continue to be using a systematic synthetic approach to phonics. This will be achieved using our InitiaLit program, which students will be familiar with from last year.
InitiaLit is an evidence-based whole-class literacy program providing all children with the essential core knowledge and strong foundations to become successful readers and writers. InitiaLit is a three-year program, covering the first three years of school (Foundation to Year 2)
For Level 1 students, there will be time to review sounds and tricky words taught in throughout the year at the beginning of this term. We want to reiterate how important it is that students are practising their tricky words and readers at home to consolidate our lessons.
The new concepts being covered this term are:
Spelling concepts covered:
- Soft 'c' as in city
- Soft 'g' as in giraffe
- Digraph /ge/ as in cage
- Trigraph /dge/ as in bridge
- Trigraph /tch/ as in watch
- Prefix 'un' as in unable
- Multi-syllable words
- Reviewing
Tricky words introduced:
- always
- animal
- open
- other
- another
- water
- walk
- talk
- know
- laugh
- people
- every
For Level 2 students this term, the introduction of new sounds, suffixes and new tricky words will take place. Students will also have a weekly spelling sessions to practise misspelled words. These tricky words were also sent home (as in Term 3) with each student, with their misspelled words highlighted.
We want to reiterate how important it is that students are practising these tricky words and their readers at home, at least 5 days a week, to consolidate our lessons.
Spelling concepts covered:
- tch/ch
- tion
- or/ore
- au/aw
- suffix rule doubling +ing
- suffix-ful
- ear/eer
- air/are/ear
- ue/ew/u_e
constant +le
Grammar concepts covered
- verbs
- adverbs
- conjunctions
speech
Tricky words introduced:
- women
- believe
Comprehension strategies covered:
applying all skills taught throughout the year
Writing
Our writing program will continue to use mentor texts over a series of 10 lessons to teach fundamental writing skills such as handwriting, spelling, text type, language orientation, grammar, pattern writing and author's purpose.
Mentor texts are pieces of text we can hold up as examples of good writing. A mentor text could be a single sentence or an entire book. It could be something written by the teacher, a student, a published author or someone else entirely. This term, the children will be immersed in texts that cover the narrative, persuasive and informative genres.
Level 1 Mentor Texts for Term 4
- Little Dog and Summer Holiday
- Finding Our Hearts
- The Most Magnificent Thing
- Stellaluna
What Do You Wish For
Level 2 Mentor Texts for Term 4
- Go Go and the silver shoes
- Jeremy
- Dante's lunch
- The true story of the 3 little pigs
- Everything you know about sharks is wrong
- Reindeer's Christmas Surprise