So what is Structured Literacy? Structured Literacy involves highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (e.g., decoding, spelling) and higher-level literacy skills (e.g., reading comprehension, written expression).

This year, across all year levels we are teaching Structured Literacy. All students follow a set scope and sequence where they learn letter sounds, digraphs (two or more consonants or letters that make one sound), spelling patterns and rules of spelling to accelerate their letter sound knowledge and help improve spelling, decoding and reading and writing skills.

Our shift in teaching practices across our school in literacy this year is based on Best Evidence so that we can improve outcomes for our learners in Reading and Writing. This year we have been involved in in-depth school wide teacher professional development to specifically tailor our teaching in this area as well as up skill all our teachers' knowledge and skills. This evidenced by what we now know about 'How the Brain Learns to Read', This video explains the science behind the research around this.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25GI3-kiLdo&t=17s

When your child starts at Avonhead School, they will begin at Stage 1 of their letter sounds, and as they become more confident in hearing and knowing these sounds, and the difference between long and short vowels, they will become more confident in being able to decode (sound out words). Initially, your child will bring home 'Heart Words' to learn too (words that don't follow the usual spelling patterns such as 'was'). Your child may not bring home a reading book to start with, but once they can segment some of of the stage 1-5 sounds and understand their long and short vowels they will bring home their first reader. We want to reassure our junior parents that this is absolutely fine, and part of the carefully scaffolded Structured Literacy Programme. 

The following video shows just how complex our English Language is and the 44-45 different spellings and sounds of our English language. As your child progresses through the school they will have had many opportunities to hear, read, write words and patterns through the explicit teaching and learning programmes in their classes that are scaffolded to meet their needs.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SePU-T4S-js

By building each students capabilities around phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, decoding, spelling patterns, grammar, vocabulary and comprehension we build all students capabilities be better readers, writers and communicators, enabling them to have greater access all areas of the curriculum as they progress through their education and beyond.