​Literacy is a core subject essential to all learning domains. Students experience daily literacy sessions that encompass Reading, Writing, Spelling and Speaking and Listening.

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Reading

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When teaching students to read at Gardenvale Primary School, we apply a balanced method of synthetic phonics and a whole language approach. Synthetic phonics teaches students the relationship between letters and the sounds they represent. Students are taught to blend these sounds together to read words. Where words cannot be decoded, structure and context cues are used to create meaning from the text. 

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Gardenvale Primary School has developed a sequential Instructional Model that uses consistent language and is explicitly taught across the whole school. Teachers assess, instruct, and monitor student progress. They construct fluid groups that provide explicit instruction, ensuring that all students reach their potential.

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Reading instruction is based around the CAFE Reading components of:

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• Comprehension: I understand what I read

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• Accuracy: I can read the words

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• Fluency: I can read accurately, with expression, and understand what I read

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• Expanding Vocabulary: I know, find, and use interesting words.

 

The best practice teaching methods used in our reading program are:

 

• Modelled Reading: teachers model correct reading strategies.

 

• Guided Reading/Reciprocal Reading/Book Club: teachers work with a group of students at their instructional level. These groups are formed using data provided by standardised assessments.

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• Shared Reading: students and teacher read together.

 

• Independent/Collaborative Tasks: allowing students time to practise and apply the new strategies and skills.

 

• Reading Conferences: these take place between the teacher and individual students. These enable the teacher to have a genuine conversation with the student about their reading.

 

Writing

 

Gardenvale Primary School provides a range or rich learning practices to engage students in authentic writing tasks. Modelled or shared writing begins the writing session. Teachers demonstrate and explicitly teach the text type being studied, with associated text features, grammatical structures and vocabulary. Students are given the opportunity to practise what has been modelled, apply their learning and publish or share with different audiences.

 

VCOP and Seven Steps are used within the school as frameworks to enhance the teaching of writing and to engage students in a variety of ways.

 

Text Types

 

The text types we teach and integrate across the curriculum are:

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• Narrative

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• Recount

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• Procedure

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• Information report

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• Explanation

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• Persuasion

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SMART Spelling (Say, Meaning, Analyse, Remember, Teach), is our whole school model that incorporates both the explicit and systematic teaching of spelling each day. A clear scope and sequence is implemented across the school. The program is based around whole words with an emphasis on meaning and vocabulary development. Spelling rules are taught in the context of words in a way that builds on prior knowledge.

 

Speaking & Listening

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Speaking and Listening refers to the various formal and informal ways oral language is used to convey and receive meaning. It involves the development of appropriate oral language for particular audiences and occasions, including body language and voice. It also involves the development of active listening strategies and an understanding of the conventions of different spoken texts. At Gardenvale Primary School students participate in authentic oral language activities that are integrated across all curriculum areas.