Curriculum
Literacy
Oral Language- Let’s stop and take a breath for a moment!!!
A theme throughout all of the ‘Spotlight Series’ articles is to ‘talk with your children’! Whether around the table at dinner time, encouraging your child to answer the telephone or enjoying an excursion together; oral language plays a significant role in a child’s success in formal schooling! Children need words (their vocabulary) to be able to communicate and succeed with the demands of language at school and the content/ proficiencies of the Australian Curriculum. Oral language forms the solid foundation required for ALL areas of learning. Increasing a child’s vocabulary must be on-going and continuous throughout the primary years and beyond.
This week we revisit the first element of the ‘Literacy Big 6’ to reinforce this concept! In future articles we will be looking in depth at comprehension strategies and things parents can do at home! However, we must ‘revisit and revisit’ oral language to ensure our community understands that a child’s vocabulary and language skills must continue to grow and be a focus at both school and home! Research shows that a child must be able to understand at least 95% of the words in a text to be able to comprehend it! Quite simply, if a child does not understand enough of the words, they are going to struggle to comprehend what they are trying to read or learn!
This week is all about pausing and taking a breath from our hectic lifestyles! Please take the time to think deeply about how you can immerse your own child in language every day! Whether cooking, gardening, fixing a car or shopping… think words! Be mindful of using precise and descriptive language in daily activities and encouraging your child to ask about the words they hear around them and what they mean. The benefits are PHENOMENAL and absolutely FREE! Yes… simply talking with your children can have the biggest impact of all on learning! Who would have thought? This is what the marketing gurus and latest ‘expensive educational toy manufacturers’ do not want you to know… but now you’re in on the SECRET, spread the news… talking and reading with your children is FREE and makes the biggest difference of all in your child’s education!!!
Think! Act! Reflect!
Leanne Winning
Literacy Improvement Co-Ordinator
leanne.winning565@schools.sa.edu.au
Numeracy
At LNPS as a whole school we teach students strategies from Ann Baker’s Secret Code to understand number and solve mathematical problems.
The ‘Secret Code’ is the name given to a range of mental strategies created by Ann Baker (Natural Maths). Each strategy has a code that is used by students when solving problems.
The next in the series is 'Chunking for Addition and Subtraction':
Parent Helpers Needed....
If you are free to help make some Secret Code Maths Strategy packs for parents to borrow from the library please email me as we are keen to make more! Get a friend or two and come in for a chat while laminating, cutting sorting etc....... Many hands make light work!
Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Belinda Adams, Deputy Principal