Literacy News

Dear Parents, 

We are so excited to be introducing Little Learners Love Literacy program at Our Lady Help Of Christians beginning 2024. At the end of 2023 we had a group of staff complete the training, furthermore we have had the opportunity for new staff to complete the training this week. 

We teach with Little Learners Love Literacy a structured and explicit program with     engaging multisensory activities. It is carefully sequenced in seven stages to teach children the 44 sounds of the English language and the principles of the alphabetic code (that each speech sound can be represented by different groups of letters, such as the sound /ī/ as in I, sky, pie, ice, cycle, and that a letter (or group of letters) can represent different sounds, such as the letter ‘y’ in yes, gym, funny, sky.

We start with teaching the simple code in Stages 1–4. We will focus on phonics and phonemic awareness to build the strongest foundations for reading and spelling success. We will also focus on building vocabulary and oral language skills to develop equally strong foundations for comprehension and writing.

Meet Milo and friends In Term 1, the Preps will be learning our Stage 1 letters and sounds. We will be enjoying the Milo’s Birthday Surprise storybook, meeting a new character and sound regularly. We will also learn to blend sounds to say words with the Ally alligator puppet and segment them for spelling, as well as learning handwriting. 

Next week the Prep Students will be introduced to Milo the Monkey as they are explicitly taught the /m/ sound and Sally the Snake a /s/ sound. 

Grade One students will be focusing on the sound /a/ represented by the letters ai and ay such as pain, paint, Spain and day, pray and May. Grade Two students will be focusing on the sound /e/ represented by the letters ee such as bee, sheep, deer and been. 

Decodable Texts When children begin their reading journey they start with decodable texts; these books require children to read words by sounding out, using the letters and sounds that they have been taught. The decodable books that are being sent home for your child are carefully selected to match the Little Learners Love Literacy sequence being taught at school. Children experience success from the start by sounding out and blending the words in the books using the sounds and letters they’ve learnt so far. Decodable books provide students the opportunity to use their developing segmenting and blending skills to read words in order to develop automaticity. Ultimately, we want students to experience independent reading success whilst mastering the skills of decoding. Decodable books encourage children to sound out words using decoding strategies rather than guessing from pictures or predicting from other cues. Decodable books are powerful, necessary learning scaffold. Once students have enough decoding skills under their belt they can transfer these skills to non-controlled text. At this next stage of their reading journey students will be focusing greater on reading comprehension, fluency and look at the text more deeply. Remember that reading is a complex process and no two students are the same. 

How can parents support their child’s reading at home. 

Reading to your child.  

During Term One Prep students will have access to borrow books from the library weekly and this would be a great opportunity to begin an after-school reading routine. Choosing a quiet time, such as bedtime, can help build an easy and fun reading routine. Read these books to your child and talk about what you just read. This is crucial for vocabulary and comprehension.

Play with sounds

Each week we will send home the Little learners letter focus. Take this opportunity to ask your child the questions that are included with the letter. This will support the development of phonemic awareness (helping in the ability to identify, blend, segment and manipulate speech sounds within words)

Say the Sound

Say the ‘pure’ sounds without an ‘uh’ soundon the end; for example, ‘lllll’ rather than ‘luh’. You can listen to the sounds on the Little Learners Love Literacy® YouTube channel.

Practise Decoding 

When decodable storybooks start to come home later in the term, encourage your child to sound out to read unknown words. Remember that this is the beginning of your child’s learning to read journey and, just as when they were learning to walk, your child will need support to build confidence reading.

If you have any concerns or questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. 

Taya Eddy 

Literacy & Teaching and Learning Leader