Background Information

What has shaped the development of this program?

Current Literacy Research has found that the following essential components are necessary for successful reading and spelling skills:

• Phonemic Awareness. Understanding that spoken words are made up of a sequence of sounds and the ability to identify the sounds to blend and segment. For example, p o t = pot (blend)  and pot = p o t (segment). 

  • • This program will explicitly teach phonemic awareness activities through oral phonogram review, written phonogram review and spelling dictation

• Explicit Systematic Phonics Instruction. Understanding that the sounds of our language are represented by written symbols (codes) is explicitly taught. The ability to decode words is the essential foundation of reading. This allows for more effort to then be placed on comprehension when reading rather than decoding words.

  • • This program will explicitly teach phonics through sound-symbol matching activities, oral phonogram review, written phonogram review, spelling dictation. Explicit teaching to say and write the 70 symbols (phonograms) for 45 speech sounds and blend phonograms into whole words. Activities will work on teaching the sound - symbol connection in words. 

• Fluency. To read fluently you must be able to decode automatically. This is essential for comprehension. Fluency is achieved through teacher modelling fluency and expression, guided oral reading and reading a small familiar text three times.

  • • This program will explicitly teach fluency through reading for spelling and reading in spelling dictation, reading own sentences, modelling of expressive reading by a parent/teacher and by re-reading a short familiar text three times to build confidence and accuracy. 

    • Another aspect to fluency is learning to read High Frequency Words. Learning to recognise these words quickly and automatically is an important step in becoming a fluent reader.  

• Vocabulary Development. This is essential to gain meaning from the text (comprehension). This needs to be taught directly and indirectly. This can be done during vocabulary development lessons linked to a topic such as health. This can occur during writing lessons, constructing oral/written sentences, during reading lessons, oral comprehension during Book Club sessions, teacher modelling of comprehension strategies (context clues) and with regular exposure to good quality literature.

• Comprehension. Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to (1) decode what they read; (2) make connections between what they read and what they already know; and (3) think deeply about what they have read. 

Special Note:

These skills must be explicitly taught and practised daily in order for them to be correctly understood and applied successfully.

Website

This website has been created by staff from Knox Park Primary School. To learn more about Knox Park visit our school website: https://knoxparkps.vic.edu.au/  

If you seek further information regarding Knox Park's Spelling Program, contact the school's Principal, Mr Mark Hanson at: mark.hanson@education.vic.gov.au or Michael Doukakis at: michael.doukakis@education.vic.gov.au 

Acknowledgement

This website is based on material from the 'Write 2 Read Program' developed by Marian Dunne. For further details visit the W2R website at: http://www.writetoread.com.au/