Information for Whānau

Structured Literacy

What is it?

Structured literacy is based on the Science of Reading which refers to the body of research that has been conducted over many years on how people learn to read.

What does it involve?

Reading, spelling, handwriting, phonological awareness (the ability to discriminate sounds) and phonics (letter/sound relationships) are all taught at the same time in a structured literacy lesson.

We follow a scope and sequence which builds on from previous learning and increases in complexity. This scope and sequence is used within our year one and two literacy programmes.

• Literacy lessons explicitly teach new sounds and literacy skills.

• When your child first starts school they learn the first eight letter sounds (m s f a p t c i ) in the sequence.

• They will learn their Heart Words ‘off by heart’ as these words will not yet be able to be decoded by them but are needed in the books (e.g. the, my).

• They will learn how to decode words by segmenting (breaking up letter sounds) and blending (joining the letter sounds together) like c-a-t and when we blend it together the word is cat.

• When they become more fluent, they will be able to map many of these words into a part of their brain and not need to sound them out anymore.

• Once they have developed these early literacy skills they will be able to use their knowledge and skills to decode (read) books and encode (spell) words.

• They will continue to learn the other stages of the ‘code’ (i.e. the 44 speech sounds and the letters or letter combinations that represent these) and the books they read will steadily increase in complexity until they transition onto levelled books.

How is this different from before?

• Students will not use the pictures or predict from the context what a word might be when decoding/reading new words.

• Students learn to spell (encode) words at the same time as learning to read (decode).

• Children generally have great success with this approach as they are able to independently read (decode) all the words themselves without relying on pictures or guesses.

• We will continue to use rich language and picture books to develop vocabulary, comprehension and to help the children understand how books work.

How can you help at home?

• Enjoy and read picture books and non-fiction books based on your child’s interests. Have fun with the language especially with rhyming books e.g. Dr Seuss and Hairy Maclary. Enjoy retelling the stories together or predicting what may happen next.

• Read the structured literacy book with your child each night. Even if it is not a new book as this reinforces the literacy skills they are learning at school.

• Play word games, such as I Spy with a beginning sound (not a letter), build words with letter tiles or say a word that rhymes with another word.

• To support fine motor skills, drawing, baking, climbing, Lego and puzzles can help.