Mackellar Buzz Logo
Mackellar Buzz
Banner Photo

English 

At Mackellar Primary School, students in Prep to Grade 2 learn phonics through the Sounds-Write program.

 

In Sounds-Write lessons, students learn four key concepts:                                                                                         

  1. Letters are symbols that represent sounds.
  2. A sound can be spelled with one, two, three or even four letters. For example, dog, street, night, dough.
  3. The same sound can be spelled in different ways. For example, rain, break, stay, gate.

  4. The same spelling can represent different sounds. For example, head, seat, break.

     

Students also practise three important skills:

 

  1. Segmenting - breaking words into their individual sounds.
  2. Blending - pushing sounds together to read words.

  3. Phoneme manipulation - adding, removing or changing sounds in words. This helps students work out the correct spelling when one spelling pattern can represent different sounds.

     

These concepts and skills work together to build strong foundations for reading and spelling.

 

Students in Grades 3 to 6 have been reading and writing different text types. In Grades 3 and 5, students have been focusing on exposition texts, including writing persuasive arguments to change a rule or law. Students have also been preparing for NAPLAN, which will take place in weeks 7 and 8.    In Grades 4 and 6, students have been learning about response texts. Visual, written and performed works have been explored, and students have used positive and negative judgement language to express their preferences and opinions.

 

Homework and home reading are well underway. At home, you can help support your child’s reading and writing by:

 

  • Reading with them every day. Talk about new words, point out patterns, and enjoy stories together.
  • Encouraging them to write at home – whether it’s stories, letters, lists or journal entries.
  • Noticing sounds in daily life. Look at signs, labels or shopping lists and ask, “What sounds can you hear in this word?”
  • Encouraging sounding out. If your child gets stuck on a word, prompt them to “say the sounds and read/write the word.”
  • Playing word games such as: “What word do you get if you change the /m/ in map to /t/?” or “What is sun without the /s/?”

 

Elyse Burgess 

English Learning Specialist