Quicksmart Program
I cannot believe that we are in June already!! I am sure we will start seeing Christmas decorations in the shops very soon, as we stroll down aisles to the familiar tunes of Christmas carols!
At ESC we have a strong commitment to providing support to improve and bolster our students’ literacy skills and QuickSmart is a program that is designed to do just that.
I would just like to give a brief rundown of the program to those students and families that have joined our school community this year.
The QuickSmart program provides intensive support for a student’s literacy skills in reading and comprehension. It works on basic skills such as word recognition, decoding, vocabulary knowledge, spelling, fluency and comprehension. QuickSmart focuses on the role of automaticity in learning. It aims to free up the working memory of students so that they can engage meaningfully in school activities that require comprehension of text.
Students work on stories at different levels. We model, scaffold and ensure success.
Students who are recommended for the program are tested using OZCASS (Australian Cognitive Aptitude Assessment System) a computer assessment tool that provides information about each student’s accuracy and speed of recalling words and reading for meaning.
Our student’s favourite part of the lesson is ‘The Flash Card Minute’. Each story comes with a list of Focus words that are integral to the story and each lesson the students have 1 minute to read as many of these cards that they possibly can, both with speed and accuracy.
The students then record their results as a running tally.
On average we aim to read between 50 to 60 words.
Most of our students have managed to blow that number out of the water with many reaching 70 to 80 words!!
A huge round of applause to the following students who have recorded scores that are SIMPLY AMAZING!!!!
Jenifer Loar & Annalyse Bartleson : 90 words each
Nathan Bekiaris, Benjamin Ridding & Bryce Vangestel : 94 words
Sonia Latu : 92 words
Christopher Bakopolous & Maddison Lagana : 97 words
Jett Hall : 98 & 100 words
Nathaniel Koumakis : 100 & 102 words
The student with the highest recording thus far is a past student Youssef Hussein with an ASTOUNDING 116!! That record has held since 2019…….BUT….
That record may soon be broken by Adriana Jovanovic. To date, Adriana has scored 105 and wait for it…...111. Go Adriana!
Congratulations to them all and congratulations to those who are not far behind, earning excellent results.
(Spare a thought for me, as they constantly goad me to flip faster)!
As I am writing this, we are currently in lockdown and working remotely. Our QuickSmart program has been continuing online and is running very smoothly.
To all our students and our school community, I would like to commend you all for your positive approach to what can at times be a stressful and daunting experience during this time. Stay Safe and Keep Smiling!
On a closing note, a little something from me to you.
“What do you get if you cross the Atlantic with the Titanic?
Halfway!”
Shauna O’Donnell
QuickSmart Instructor