"Strong Tomorrow"

Students participate in Writer’s Workshops daily.  The Writer’s Workshop is a carefully planned session where students are explicitly taught and provided with authentic learning experiences to apply new understandings.  Like the Reader’s Workshop, students participate in small focus groups and conferences with the teacher, supporting students to learn at their point of need.

Students are immersed in the writing process which includes; planning and rehearsing, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading and publishing.  Throughout the writing process, students develop and apply their understanding of; text structure, sentence and grammatical structures, vocabulary choices, spelling, punctuation and handwriting.

Over the course of the year, our students develop an understanding of writing imaginative, persuasive and informative texts.  They learn how different types of texts serve different social purposes.  Over the course of the year, students create texts such as narratives, explanations, procedures, poetry, letters, reviews, expositions etc.

Spelling is a complex skill that requires students to use their understanding of phonological, orthographic, morphemic and etymological knowledge.

Each year level plans for spelling systematically, designing learning sequences that meet the needs of our students and the standards set out by the Victorian Curriculum.  Explicit teaching of spelling includes:

• Producing letter sounds (phonemes) and representing these phonemes with letters (graphemes)
• Developing an understanding of spelling rules
• Using a ‘phoneme fist’ to support sounding out words
• Using visual cues to support the correct spelling of ‘sight words’ such as; the, my and said
• Breaking words up into their syllables
• Identifying morphemes including base words, prefixes and suffixes
• Investigating etymology, identifying word roots, origin and related words.

As part of the homework program, students are given spelling words to practise.  These words are aligned with what they are learning at school.  You can support your child by asking them:

• What sound are you learning to spell this week?
• What are the letters that you use to represent this sound?
• Can you read your words to me?
• What are the other tricky parts of the words?
• What do you need to remember as you are writing these words?

Speaking and listening has a strong interrelationship with reading and writing and is planned for and explicitly taught across the curriculum.  During speaking and listening tasks, students build their capacity to use oral language, which incorporates receptive and expressive language.  Students are explicitly taught how to use language for different purposes, such as developing relationships, expressing opinions and feelings, discussing their learning, expressing wants and needs, responding to and giving instructions, telling stories, communicating facts etc.

Speaking and listening occur daily in the classroom through planned and unplanned opportunities.  In the classroom, students are developing their confidence and ability through a variety of ways including;

• Making an acknowledgement of country at the start of the day
• Expressing a compliment towards the PATHS kid
• Listening to and responding to instructions
• Asking questions to clarify understanding of learning tasks
• Roleplaying
• Expressing ideas about a book to a partner, teacher, small groups and/or the whole class
• Talking about their learning
• Responding to carefully curated questions
• Social interactions during all curriculum areas but in particular during ‘Discovery’ (Foundation students), Inquiry, group work, partner work and problem solving tasks

Our students are also taught how to use pace, tone, volume and nonverbal communication skills to effectively communicate with others.  They plan and rehears for formal opportunities to speak, such as creating a speech to persuade others and speaking at our weekly assembly.  They are also given opportunities to speak with less familiar people, such as visiting community members.