Literacy
At Kangaroo Ground Primary School, all students participate in two hours of Literacy every day.
In the junior school, we use a systematic synthetic phonics program called Little Learners Love Literacy (LLLL). This is an evidence-based program for teaching children to read, write and spell. LLLL sequentially builds children’s phonemic awareness, phonics understanding, reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, morphology and handwriting skills.
Students are explicitly taught phonemes (sounds) and graphemes (letters), as well as how to blend these sounds together to read words.
DECODABLE READERS
Decodable readers are used for beginning readers until children have mastered the alphabetic code.
The decodable readers we use are carefully sequenced to match the sounds we are teaching. This means that children are only asked to read words with the sounds and rules they have been taught, which allows them to practise sounding out and blending to read words, rather than guessing or looking at the pictures.
Children bring home daily readers, and families also have access to Decodable Readers Australia online books as another resource.
NESSY ONLINE PROGRAM
All students also have access to the online phonics program, Nessy, which follows a systematic synthetic phonics approach. This benefits all learners, including those with dyslexia.
Children are given an individualised learning plan to progress though at their own pace and are able to use their individual login at home as well as at school.
WRITING
Students explore a range of genres of writing. They are given numerous opportunities to develop their writing abilities across the curriculum whether it be writing a narrative or presenting information on a particular topic in the form of a project.
There is a focus on handwriting across all year levels. Handwriting is taught explicitly and regularly as part of our daily literacy program.
SPEAKING & LISTENING
Students and given many opportunities to develop their speaking and listening skills. In the early years, this takes the form of weekly Show & Tell and many opportunities to share work and ideas. This develops in complexity over the years to such experiences as making and delivering PowerPoint presentations on researched topics, working as a team and making announcements at school assemblies.
READING INTERVENTION
For those requiring extra support in reading, writing and spelling, we use a program called Alpha to Omega. Students work in small groups.