At Wellard Primary School, teachers employ a range of evidence-based literacy approaches and programs to tailor teaching and learning to the needs of their students. Each program/approach has been carefully selected, and aligns closely with the Science of Reading.

Phonological awareness

Phonological awareness is a critical skill for all students' literacy development, and a predictor of later reading and spelling success. Phonological awareness refers to oral language and is the understanding of the different ways that language can be broken down into smaller parts.

Phonological awareness consists of five subskills beginning with word, syllable, onset/rime awareness, moving to the more complex subskills of basic and advanced phonemic awareness.

At Wellard PS, teachers use the following programs to teach phonological awareness:

Heggerty- K-1- This program is heavily supported by research and is recommended by the National Reading Panel. This includes the explicit teaching of:

Multisensory Activities

To support the teaching of Heggerty in the Kindergarten and pre-primary classes, teachers run additional small groups, with the support of Education Assistants. The activities used are multi-sensory, and provide additional modelling, practice and explanation of the skills being taught.

David Kilpatrick- Phonemic Awareness (Years 2-6)

A comprehensive step-by-step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. The program involves short and sharp 1-2 minute drills that are to be delivered a minimum of once per day.

Sounds-Write- Synthetic Phonics For Reading and Spelling (Years PP-3)

Sounds-Write is a highly structured, multi-sensory, incremental, and code-oriented instructional approach to teaching children to read and spell. The Sounds-Write programme provides fast and effective teaching for children at all levels. When delivering Sounds-Write, teachers are expected to follow the programme script and deliver the lessons as per the provided manual. Sounds-Write is developed for teachers of Pre-primary to Year 2. However, we extend the teaching of Sounds-Write to Year 3 to ensure we complete the entire code.

Students are carefully progress monitored throughout the term, to ensure concepts and skills are revisited as required.

Reading Fluency

The relationship between fluency and reading comprehension has been established in multiple studies. This is a two-way relationship: when children read more fluently, they understand what they read better, and when children understand what they are reading they read with more prosody and expression. However, fluency has a stronger effect on comprehension than vice versa (Five from Five).

At Wellard Primary School, every class from Pre-primary to Year Six participates in paired fluency practice. This routine aims to enhance reading fluency, expression, and to some extent comprehension.

To further support the development of reading fluency, the school also implements a rigorous morning reading and home reading program. This is supported by an extensive collection of both decodable and knowledge building texts within the library.

Reading Comprehension

Comprehension is an active process that involves the reader understanding and interpreting what is read. At Wellard primary School, the teachers have participated in many many hours of professional learning to ensure whole school and classroom based decsions are made based on the most effective, evidence based approaches to teach reading comprehension.

Teachers have now modified/created Knowledge Based Reading Units that are delivered rigorously in all year 1-6 classes. The units were developed based on Scarborough’s Reading Rope, and were carefully designed based on the following evidence based key ideas;

Explicit Vocabulary

Explicit vocabulary instruction is an essential component of developing the language and literacy skills necessary to succeed in school. A child’s vocabulary growth is directly linked to his or her overall school achievement. The more words a child knows, the more information the child has access to. (Beck, McKeown, Kucan, 2002).

At Wellard Primary School, Tier 2 vocabulary is to be taught explicitly in Reading, Writing, Maths and other Key Learning Areas.

Spelling Mastery

Spelling Mastery (Year 2-6)- Spelling Mastery teaches students the strategies they need to become successful, life-long spellers. Using a combined approach of phonemic, morphemic and whole-word strategies, Spelling Mastery teaches students to understand the relationship between sounds, word parts and spelling patterns. Spelling Mastery is timetabled 4 x 30 minute lessons per week for Year 2 – 6 students.

Talk 4 Writing (K-6)

The Talk for Writing approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.

Talk 4 Writing Process includes five stages:

1. 1. Baseline assessment and planning- cold task
   2. The imitation phase
   3. The innovation phase
   4. Independent application- hot task
   5. Final assessment- building on progression

Syntax and Grammar

Grammar- The whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections)

Syntax- Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences.

Punctuation-the marks used in writing to separate sentences and their elements and to clarify meaning.

At Wellard Primary School, teachers are to complete one explicit grammar lesson per week based on the Grammar Project scope and sequence and resources The Grammar Project (squarespace.com). This is then to be followed with daily practice through review. Using writing and reading as an opportunity to further practice and embed these new skills and concepts is highly necessary.

Handwriting

Handwriting is an important aspect of the Western Australian English Curriculum. Just as effortful word decoding may impair reading comprehension, laboured handwriting creates a drain on mental resources needed for higher-level aspects of writing, such as attention to content, elaboration of details, and organisation of ideas. Ten minutes of explicit handwriting per day can assist in preventing later writing problems, including difficulties with high-level composition skills. 

At Wellard primary School, handwriting is taught explicitly across all year levels. Letter formation prompts are provided and are used by all teachers, ensuring that consistent instruction is occurring as students move through the school.