This year we are working towards our Site Improvement Plan goal in reading: 80% of students in year 3 and year 5 achieve SEA in NAPLAN.

InitialLit

InitialLit is a systematic synthetic phonics program that focuses on building students core knowledge of the alphabetic code. As a part of the program, student’s focus on:

• Letter-sound correspondences and how these are applied to reading and spelling
• Grammatical concepts
• Tricky Words
• Vocabulary, oral language and listening comprehension

This is our second year using the program and we have seen some great improvement in student reading.

This year we have started using MiniLit Sage as an intervention program. This program targets student's specific learning gaps (identified through data collection) to support them to improve as readers. 

Currently the year 3 teachers are running the second half of InitiaLit-2 and will move onto Spelling Mastery next term.

Spelling Mastery

This year we have begun a new spelling program in years 4-6, Spelling Mastery. Spelling Mastery offers Direct Instruction to enable teachers to deliver interactive and structured lessons.

Spelling Mastery is delivered across 6 different levels. At the beginning of the year students are placed in a group based on test results. The content is then delivered to the specific needs of each group. Currently we have the 5 upper primary classes split between 7 teachers, allowing for smaller groups and extra support. 

This year we are using DIBELS to assess students Oral Reading Fluency, Accuracy and Reading Comprehension in years 3-6. Across our cohort, the data has shown that although many are meeting the targets for reading accuracy, many are below targets for reading fluency. This will be an area of focus this year.

Kelly Jones