Literacy

At CPPS, we prioritise creating a language-rich environment for our students. We achieve this by immersing them in high-quality texts on a daily basis. This exposure to diverse and engaging literature not only enhances their vocabulary but also nurtures their oral language skills. We integrate oral language routines into everyday activities. For instance, students are encouraged to act out the stories they hear, sing songs, participate in classroom discussions and respond using complete sentences, fostering their ability to express thoughts and ideas effectively.

By providing numerous and varied opportunities for talk, we empower our students to develop strong oral language skills, paving the way for successful reading and comprehension. Through our commitment to a language-rich environment and evidence-based instruction, we strive to bridge vocabulary gaps and support the holistic development of our students.

Students at CPPS spend time daily learning a continuum of phonics skills, progressing from simple to complex. When children learn to read using Synthetic Phonics, they learn to link letters to speech sounds and then blend these sounds together to read words. The reading process involves decoding or ‘breaking’ words into separate sounds that are blended together to read words. At CPPS, children learn how blending and segmenting words is a reversible process; if you can read a word, you can spell it!

During the initial weeks of Term 1, our Prep students embark on an exciting journey of learning by focusing on our Stage 1 letters and sounds. We introduce and emphasise the foundational letter sounds of s, a, t, p, i, and n. Once children become familiar with these sounds, they begin to blend them together, enabling them to say and eventually read words such as at, sat, pat, sit, pit, pin and ant. In addition to developing their sound knowledge and reading skills, students also practise proper letter formation, which is essential for their emerging writing abilities.

As the school year progresses, our students continue to expand their letter knowledge and sound recognition. They gradually acquire more letters and build upon their phonetic understanding, enabling them to read increasingly complex words. Through engaging activities and explicit instruction, we provide opportunities for students to strengthen their reading abilities, gradually unlocking the world of literacy and fostering a lifelong love for reading.

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken words are made of individual sounds called phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound we hear in a word. During daily Phonemic Awareness lessons students from Foundation – Grade 2 are taught explicitly how to identify the individual sounds in words by listening and then they learn how to manipulate those sounds orally.

When children read with fluency, their comprehension of the text significantly improves. Fluency plays a vital role in reading comprehension, which is why it’s important to incorporate effective and research-backed fluency instruction in reading lessons. By helping children develop fluency skills, we enable them to read smoothly and effortlessly, which in turn boosts their ability to comprehend and engage with the text.

Text or passage reading fluency encompasses three key elements: accuracy, rate, and expression, also known as prosody. When children struggle with text reading fluency, it is typically characterised by multiple word errors in their reading, a slow and laborious pace, or a lack of natural and fluid expression, often resulting in a stilted or robotic delivery.

After our Prep students have mastered the initial six letter sounds (s, a, t, p, i, n) and gained ample experience in blending and segmenting words, we introduce a valuable resource: decodable books. These books are our key to success, as they follow a straightforward approach without any confusing tricks. Each story focuses on the sounds and letters we have taught, enabling children to independently read the books by sounding out and blending the words—no guessing required! These decodable books provide targeted practice, reinforcing their growing reading skills and fostering confidence in their ability to tackle new texts.

At CPPS, we place emphasis on explicitly teaching vocabulary to support our students’ comprehension of more complex texts. We follow the guideline of selecting Tier 2 words for intensive and explicit vocabulary instruction. Tier 2 words are those that have broad applicability across various written contexts, enabling students to understand a wide range of complex texts.

We incorporate Tier 2 words from storybooks in the early years and expand to novels or non-fiction texts in the middle to upper primary levels. Integrating words related to the topics being studied creates meaningful connections and deepens vocabulary knowledge.

To work on language comprehension, we engage in repeated readings of texts throughout the week. Each time, we focus on a target word, with the teacher modelling the pronunciation and asking students to repeat it, establishing both a phonological and orthographic representation. We also discuss the spelling of the word and any irregularities to deepen understanding.

Furthermore, we encourage students to encounter the target words in other texts and actively generate sentences that incorporate the word. This approach fosters a more comprehensive understanding and application of vocabulary in various contexts.

By explicitly teaching Tier 2 vocabulary through repeated exposure, discussions, and active practise, we provide our students with the necessary tools to comprehend and engage with more complex texts effectively.

Research indicates that reading comprehension is closely connected to the background knowledge we have on a topic. Through our integrated curriculum, students at CPPS access a knowledge building curriculum. They have the opportunity to build a broad knowledge base of literacy, numeracy, history, science, geography and the arts. Students will have access to more complex texts, often read aloud by their teacher, and in the process, gain more complex vocabulary.

The ultimate goal of all reading instruction is for students to understand what they read. The model of The Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tunmer, 1986) demonstrates that reading comprehension occurs only when students have both Decoding/Word Recognition skills and Language Comprehension skills.