Embedded Files
What is happening?
The whole school has introduced a structured literacy approach to our classrooms. Whilst this approach looks different within our classes we have all received the same professional development.
Why is this happening?
After implementing iDeal in the junior school, we have begun to see the benefits of structured literacy. Using the iDeal platform we have now imbedded this programme throughout the entire school.
What does this mean?
This has meant that we have easy access to resources, and continuity across the schools because this has a step by step process we can use to make sure each student gets what they need across the different year groups.
Next steps
We are continuing to dive deeper into this approach to continue to inform our practice as we continue on our structured literacy journey.
English with Mrs Smith (ESOL)
Each week Mrs Smith works with 39 children from years 1-8, where english is their second language. These classes focus on conversational english, building vocabulary and reading comprehension. Whilst the iDeal platform is used to support the children's reading and spelling, there are lots of hands on activities, like following instructions correctly to create a piece of art or cooking something delicious!
Junior Syndicate
Bethlehem and Eden
We implement the structured literacy approach using a range of resources. The iDeal platform is used as a consistent and sequential framework across the school. At Stage 1 we are building a strong foundation of literacy skills.
Key elements of Stage 1 include:
Phonological Awareness: Explicitly teaching skills like rhyming, syllable segmentation, and isolating individual sounds (phonemes) within words.
Alphabetic Principle: Connecting spoken sounds directly to written letters and spelling patterns, preventing guesswork.
Diagnostic Assessment: Using targeted, data-driven tools to track progress and guide your exact teaching steps.
Multisensory Engagement: Ensuring instruction is clear, systematic, cumulative, and uses a variety of senses for learning.
Students build and develop their reading, writing and oral language through a range of written, hands on, teacher guided and independent tasks.
In Samaria, Literacy is delivered through iDeal (a Structured Literacy Approach) that has a strong focus on explicit, structured teaching of reading, writing, and spelling. The students are supported to develop essential literacy skills through a systematic approach that builds confidence, accuracy, and independence.
In writing, students have been introduced to the structure and language features of recounts, enabling them to retell personal experiences in a clear and organised way.
In Term 2, the focus will shift to narrative writing, where the students will learn to create simple stories with characters, settings, and events.
Across all areas of literacy, the students are encouraged to apply their skills in meaningful contexts, strengthening their ability to communicate ideas effectively.
Reading
Literacy Support in small groups.
Mrs Ewan continues to teach literacy lessons to small groups of students who need extra support in literacy. She uses the iDeaL approach, so that it aligns exactly with what is happening in classrooms. With small groups, it is easier to focus on skills that each child needs help with.
At the beginning of Term 2, she moved from the corridor to the small room off the library, which is much warmer and has less distractions, therefore the students are able to focus more easily on their learning.
Unfortunately, there is a large number of students who need extra support, so therefore the small groups are 4 or 5 students in each group, which is not ideal (particularly for those students who would do better one to one or one to two). However, Mrs Ewan has tried her best to fit in all the students who need extra help and support in literacy.
Nazareth
In Nazareth, students are learning a range of literacy skills through the iDeal Structured Literacy programme. The students are developing their reading, spelling, handwriting, phonics, vocabulary, and writing skills through explicit and structured lessons. They are learning to recognise sounds, blend and segment words, improve their fluency, and build confidence in reading and writing. The students are also learning recount writing and are developing the skills to retell personal experiences in a clear and organised way.
Each day, the students practise writing alphabet letters, sentences related to the focus letter, and drawing pictures to match their learning. These activities help strengthen letter formation, sentence structure, vocabulary, and creativity.
The literacy lessons are engaging, interactive, and fun for the students. The children enjoy participating in hands-on activities, games, group learning, and structured tasks that make learning meaningful and enjoyable. The programme encourages students to become confident, independent learners while developing a love for literacy,
Zion
Zion
Our English skills are a big focus of each day in Zion. We follow the iDeal spelling programme, and students are making progress using this structured and consistent approach. We practise our handwriting each day, with a mixture of numbers, letters, words and sentences, copied material and some creativity. In reading, we have looked at a range of texts - poems, non-fiction articles and short stories. A favourite was the work we did on mustelids, where we combined our reading with learning about local traps donated by our class whanau. Students are learning to locate information for reading comprehension, and beginning to make inferences. In writing, we have been practising extending our sentences and adding information to make our ideas exciting.
Senior Syndicate
Galilee
In Galilee, our literacy learning helps us become independent readers, writers, and thinkers. We use the iDeal Structured Literacy approach to practice spelling by breaking down big words into roots, prefixes, and suffixes, while also working hard on our handwriting and listening skills. During reading groups, we explore journals from Tahurangi, ( which are at 3 levels) as well as novels and poetry, to learn new vocabulary, find hidden meanings, and analyse text structures. When it’s time to write, step-by-step lessons help us plan, draft, and edit stories that inform, persuade, or entertain, helping us share our voices with confidence!
Showcasing neat handwriting and correct letter formation.
Students learn, create and share Kennings Poem about self.
Book Character week where favourite characters come alive!
Cana
Cana
During Term 1 for Reading Cana have focused on practicing their reading comprehension by completing a range of different reading comprehension tasks. These tasks require learners to understand the main idea, identify details, remember information, make inferences and draw conclusions.
In Term 2 we have started a class novel "The Boy at the Back of the Class" which we will continue to read in Term 2 and complete activities about. We also regularly visit the school library for enjoyment. In writing we have enjoyed covering a range of text forms, such as: poetry, instructional and narrative.
Jerusalem and Capernaum
Jerusalem and Capernaum
This year the senior classes are working together by streaming the children into three groups based on their spelling ability. During our literacy time, each group rotates and gets 20-25 minutes a day of intense spelling lessons using the iDeal platform, whilst the other two groups are working in the other classroom on their writing skills. These skills range from sentence structure, to building on ideas, types of speech and structures of different types of texts. This time also includes the explicit teaching of listening comprehension skills as this is also a focus area based on our testing and assessment.
Reading comprehension has been a large focus in the senior classes after our data analysis. During their reading time a range of learning opportunities are presented to them, including learning to answer questions directly from the text, inferring and adding their prior knowledge to be able to answer questions about what they are reading.
Each class is also engaged of reading a shared novel. This term these novels are "Children of the Rush" and "Hitler's Daughter". Students explore the author's message, themes, and symbols within the text. They also demonstrate their comprehension of both written and verbal information.
Handwriting is also an important part of our daily routine. Children are expected to practice their handwriting for 15-20mins a day, focusing on letter size, shape and of course, neatness!
An alternative cover for our shared novel.
An alternative cover for our shared novel.
Within our literacy rotation students learn about the mechanics and structures involved in written language.
2024-2025
Junior Syndicate
Eden
Handwriting- Everyday using both Casey the Caterpillar and iDeal.
Heggerty sessions- Whole class daily, covers phonological awareness skills.
iDeal Literacy- Small groups daily, whole class spelling.
Library- Every Wednesday with year 7/8s buddies reading to students.
Big Book- Everyday focusses = What makes a title page, predicting, summarizing and punctuation.
Writing- Share sentence in a circle time, draw picture related, attempt to write sounds heard in sentence, reshare with teacher to write.
Bethlehem
Using the structured approach to teaching our Literacy block encompasses a range of learning engagements systematically building phonological awareness, handwriting, spelling, reading , writing and oral language skills. We use a range of resources including the iDeal platform to target specific learning needs.
Daily activities include:
Phonological Awareness games and routines using iDeal, Heggerty and Ultimate Phonological resources
Handwriting using the Casey Caterpillar shapes, this is a consistent approach used across the Junior School
Interactive iDeal spelling lessons that build on prior knowledge
Whole class shared reading using a range of big books, picture books, non fiction texts and poems
Reading Groups - small groups to target the different levels within the class. Students take home readers to consolidate and celebrate learning with their families
Writing sessions following the "I Do, We Do, You Do" routine, students are learning to write sentences at this level
Oral language opportunities throughout the day including calendar, circle time and games
Samaria
In Samaria our literacy block is very structured.
Handwriting instruction - whole class,
Spelling - whole class (• Phonology • Morphology • Decode, encode, decode • Syllable types • Spelling rules and orthographic patterns) differentiation occurs in instructional reading
Reading - small group (Phonology • Morphology • Decode, encode, decode • Syllable types • Vocabulary • Background knowledge • Text structure • Critical thinking • Sentence structures and grammar • Semantics) with focus on
Writing- whole class (• Vocabulary • Background knowledge • Text structure • Critical thinking • Sentence types • Sentence structures and grammar• Orthographic conventions • Semantics)
Handwriting
Spelling
Reading - Junior Decodables
Nazareth
In Nazareth we have been busily working on our structured literacy. This term have been spending time learning about narratives and recounts.
We are learning about the structure of narrative writing through reading and investigating well-known fairy tales. We have also been getting in some buddy reading when we can!
Buddy reading
Buddy reading
Ready for reading groups!
Ready for reading groups!
Zion
In Zion, our class is diving into Roald Dahl's 'Fantastic Mr. Fox'! We're having a blast with students taking turns reading aloud, which is building their confidence and fluency. To really immerse ourselves in the story, we're also creating a 'Wanted Mr. Fox' poster. The students' drawings, capturing key moments and their memories of the story, are absolutely fabulous! You should see their fantastic depictions of those unforgettable farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean!
Each day, Zion students practice their writing in their writing books, with a focus on a new letter of the alphabet. They also participate in the IDEAL structure literacy programme every day, which they find to be lots of fun and very engaging.
Senior Syndicate
Cana
Cana
During Term 1 for Reading Cana have focused on practicing their reading comprehension by completing a range of different reading comprehension tasks and using Read Theory online. These tasks require learners to understand the main idea, identify details, remember information, make inferences and draw conclusions.
We have also enjoyed working on a range of fun activities about what we have read, some activities have been making new book covers, creating a bookmark and drawing the main characters.
In the last two weeks of the term we have started our class novel “Holes” which we will continue to read in Term 2 and complete activities about what we have read. We also regularly visit the school library for enjoyment.
Cana
Cana
For Writing in Term 1 Cana focused on writing poetry. We covered a range of different poetry styles - haiku, limericks, shape poems, creating acrostic poems to learn more about our classmates and diamante poems. Also as part of our lIteracy programme we have included regular handwriting sessions and I have begun to incorporate structured spelling sessions into our weekly programme after attending online training for iDeaL.
Structured Literacy in our Year 7 and 8 space includes the explicit teaching of spelling rules and patterns, using authentic texts to increase fluency and the decoding of new/unknown vocabulary. Students complete a 20 minute structured Ideal lesson daily as part of our literacy programme to encode and decode, dictate and connect meaning to unknown words. Literacy also includes regular hand writing practice, explicit instruction in the differing writing genres, developing students' surface and deeper writing skills. Students read from a range of texts, both for enjoyment and to increase their reading fluency and the meaning they gain from text.
Reading Comprehension Tasks:
Jerusalem and Capernaum have been practicing their reading comprehension strategies by completing different reading comprehension tasks. These tasks challenged them to use inferencing, context clues, predictions, summarizing and visualising to gain meaning and make connections.
Jerusalem presenting a play in assembly.
Jerusalem presenting a play in assembly.
Jerusalem presenting speech in class.
Jerusalem presenting speech in class.
Galilee exploring literacy by doing play.
Galilee exploring literacy by doing play.
PowerPoint presentation in Galilee.
PowerPoint presentation in Galilee.
Doing narrative writing story map in groups.
Doing narrative writing story map in groups.
Buddy reading in Galilee.
Buddy reading in Galilee.
2023-2024
Below is a table that shows the way that our iDeal approach aligns with the curriculum expectations.
iDeaL Assessment and Curriculum Alignment Guidelines.pdfJunior Syndicate
In Eden, handwriting is a big focus. Students are learning where to start their writing, where to sit their letters, the shapes and sizes of letters, and how to write their individual name with a capital letter at the start. We make this super fun in Eden by using Casey the Caterpillar to guide our learning. We also have a range of ways students complete their writing between whiteboards or books and mini tables or regular tables. Students respond well to the program and pick up new skills regularly. As you can see in the images students are well focussed and enjoying seeing their achievements!
At St Patrick's school we use the Structured Literacy approach to explicitly teach foundation literacy skills. In Bethlehem this includes daily phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, handwriting, shared reading (whole class), instructional reading and instructional writing (group teaching targeted to individual student needs). We use a range of resources including decodeable texts, big books, poems, games and fine motor activities.
iDeaL
iDeaL
In Samaria we are using iDeaL a structured literacy approach which provides: explicit, systematic, and sequential teaching of literacy at multiple levels that provides – phonemes, letter–sound relationships, syllable patterns, morphemes, vocabulary, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and text structure.
In Nazareth,
We have been using iDEAL as a spelling approach since last year. However, this year we have started to use iDEAL for our reading grouping as well. The children are enjoying this way of learning and as their teacher, I feel much more guided and supported with all the scaffolding and support this approach gives us.
Senior Syndicate
Within the Senior Syndicate:
IDeal, as a guide and resource to teach within the Structured Literacy framework, is becoming embedded in our teaching and learning practice, while we continue to teach comprehension, oral, visual and written language skills, as we await further guidance regarding the refreshed curriculum. Within our Literacy curriculum we utilse several approaches to ensure we are meeting the needs of all learners, such as novel studies, reciprocal reading groups, differentiated reading groups, integrated topics and self managed literacy goals based on a learners expected progress through the English curriculum.
To start the year off, Jeruslaem read Children of the Rush as a shared novel. They read this as part of their reading programme and it integrated quite nicely into their social sciences topic of Gold. Along with completing these language activities, the class also completed reading comprehension tasks around the novel.
Reading in Cana
Reading in Cana
Cana children are constantly encouraged to turn to real text to build their reading fluency and confidence. A reading wall is a challenge to all learners to build reading "miles" by adding tokens under their names for every 100 pages read.
Cana children are constantly encouraged to turn to real text to build their reading fluency and confidence. A reading wall is a challenge to all learners to build reading "miles" by adding tokens under their names for every 100 pages read.
Reading projects throughout the year are part of the English programme in Cana like this "novel" written and produced by Ruby.
BOOK CHARACTER DAY
BOOK CHARACTER DAY
Each year the learners at St. Patrick's celebrate the love of books and reading by holding a Book Character day. The staff enter the fun with the various areas of the school trying to outdo each other with their costumes
Writing in Jerusalem
Writing in Jerusalem
Using Assessment For Learning (AFL) the senior students co-construct their success criteria with each writing genre to help them have a greater understanding of what they are learning and why they are learning it. They also use peer and self assessment to mark themselves and track their progress. From there they can easily identify their next steps in their writing and what they need to focus on is clearly highlighted.
Using Assessment For Learning (AFL) the senior students co-construct their success criteria with each writing genre to help them have a greater understanding of what they are learning and why they are learning it. They also use peer and self assessment to mark themselves and track their progress. From there they can easily identify their next steps in their writing and what they need to focus on is clearly highlighted.
In the senior classes, parts of speech and spelling and grammar are also a focus in the children's writing. Deliberate acts of teaching are designed to target these areas. In the Year 8 class, there are many opportunities for the children to practice their parts of speech and spelling and grammar rules.
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