Literacy

We follow a structured, synthetic phonics approach to teaching reading and spelling that focuses on developing children’s understanding of the relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes). 

• Early years learn how to read and spell basic code (letter-sound correspondences) and progress to more complex letter-sound correspondences known as extended code.
• Middle years, students consolidate their knowledge of extended code and less frequent, more complex spelling patterns. 
• Upper years consolidate less frequent spellings and master spelling rules associated with how meaningful word parts (morphemes) come together. 

• Reception to Year 6 are taught morphemes, grammar concepts and common spelling rules

The Science of Reading

The Science of Reading is a structured literacy teaching approach that looks different to how students were previously taught to read and spell. Research from across many scientific disciplines of has shown us that there is one way to teach children to read and spell that gets better results than the others. This body of research is sometimes referred to as The Science of Reading.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Revision drills are an essential part of daily practice to ensure that students store in long term memory the phonemes (sounds) that match graphemes (letter/s) taught. 

Automaticity and fluency is the key.

Students learn, review and use spelling rules daily in instructional routines and writing tasks. They read and write words and sentences, read texts and learn vocabulary that is new or unfamiliar. Students also learn and practice how to apply grammar in context.

New learning is revised until the majority of students have reached mastery. Students needing extra practice receive it.

Tracking & monitoring

• We use DIBELS assessments 
• Letter Naming Fluency
• Phonemic Segmentation Fluency 
• Nonsense word recognition
• Word Reading Fluency
• Oral Reading Fluency
• Maze – Comprehension
• Assessments are 1-minute tests and are done three times a year with every student
• Not all assessments are for all year levels

How we teach spelling

• Phonology – how words sound 
• Orthographic (Visual) – how words look 
• Morphology – parts within words that signify meaning, grammar 
• Etymology – the historical, cultural origin of words.