Literacy
Literacy
At Woady Yaloak Primary School, our Literacy program is based on the Victorian Curriculum 2.0. We incorporate a variety of evidence-based approaches to ensure our students receive effective Literacy instruction. These include:
Word Study
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- Heggerty: An oral phonemic awareness program completed daily with Foundation to Year 1 students.
- Sounds Write: A systematic synthetic phonics program run daily with Foundation to Year 2 students, grouped according to data.
- Spelling Mastery: A low variance program that includes orthographic generalisations and morphology, taught daily to Year 3 to Year 6 students.
Handwriting and Typing Instruction
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- Handwriting practice: Explicit instruction and practice relating to correct formation, sizing and placement of letters.
- Typing instruction: Opportunities to learn appropriate finger placement and practise typing through an online program from Year 2 onwards.
Fluency Pairs
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- Fluency Pairs: Partner reading involving repeated reading with both students tracking the text.
Knowledge-based or Text-based Units
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- Engagement: Starter task to revisit a previously taught skill or vocabulary from the unit.
- Grammar or sentence-level task: Co-construct learning intention and success criteria for the lesson.
- Explicit vocabulary instruction:
- Provide student-friendly definitions of 2–5 Tier 2 words and examples in everyday contexts.
- Provide opportunities for students to interact with the meaning of the words.
- Explicit teaching – reading and viewing:
- View and read text (either fiction or non-fiction) as a class. This may include teacher read-aloud, choral reading, or students taking turns to read aloud.
- Include planned pausing points for comprehension questions or discussion.
- Direction – explicit sentence and text-level writing instruction:
- Teacher models sentence or text-level writing skills or engages in shared writing as a class.
- Guided practice of sentence or text-level writing skills.
- Practice: Independent, differentiated tasks with teacher support group.
- Independent application of the explicitly taught skill in small groups, pairs, or individually.
- Teacher support group based on data to help students meet the Learning Intention (LI) and Success Criteria (SC).
- Extension task available as required.
- Reflection:
- Revisit the LI and SC in relation to the writing task.
- May involve sharing learning or work.
- Focus on quickly recapping the key skill or knowledge from the lesson.
