Prep Bulletin

A snapshot into Reading

Learning intention: We are learning to use letter clues to help us decode. 

Learning experience overview:This is an insight into one reading lesson where we explored how letter clues can help us decode. The lesson follows our instructional model of Whole, Small, Whole. 

Whole:

As a class, we looked at words that related to our new Big Idea such as community, changes, natural, school etc. We sorted the words based on different characteristics such as: 

• Initial letter
• Number of letters
• Number of vowels
• Ending letter

Small: 

Students completed a wordsearch using the vocabulary from our word list. Students used the characteristics of words discussed in the whole class to find the words in the word search.

Enabling: 5 words in the word list and the words were only found going across.

Explore: 8 words and the words were found going down and across the word search.

Extending: 10 words and the letters were lowercase in the wordsearch. The words were found going down, across and diagonal.

Whole:

Then, to summarise, we had a class discussion on what strategies students used to locate words and which words were easier to find and why. 

In this learning experience, students will work towards:

• Identifying the initial and ending letter of words
• Identifying vowels in words
• Identifying the size of letters and words
• Using a range of letter clues together to identify words 

Examples of students work

What you can do now to continue the learning at home from this experience:

Continue to foster a curiosity and love for unpacking words by: 

• Becoming word detectives and spot words in the environment (eg street signs, menus, billboards). 
• Discuss the different characteristics of the words. 
• Create a wordlist based on your days activities and practice sorting these words in categories by looking at the features.
• Complete word searches at home.