Literacy

At Christ the Priest Primary, we believe in building the capacity of all children to be effective communicators. This involves providing all students opportunities to learn to listen to, read, view, speak, write, create and reflect on our spoken, written and multimodal texts.

We believe learning is developmental and therefore we assess to make informed decisions in providing learning experiences appropriate for each student. Skills are explicitly taught using many strategies across independent, group and whole class settings.

At Christ the Priest, English is founded on the Victorian Curriculum. We use many approaches to assist us in developing our learning. In literacy, assessment tools used are:

  • Fountas & Pinnell Benchmark Assessment System (BAS),
  • PAT Reading, Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar.
  • South Australian Spelling Test
  • SEAPART: School Entry Alphabetic and Phonological Awareness Readiness Test
  • Marie Clay’s Observation Survey

In literacy, some teaching resources used are:

  • the SMART Spelling Approach
  • Fountas & Pinnell: The Literacy Continuum
  • Targeting Text
  • Springboard to Comprehension

The knowledge, understanding and skills developed in literacy lessons are also used and linked across other areas of the curriculum. Throughout our P-6 Literacy Program, we incorporate opportunities to specifically link the digital technology curriculum.

All students are provided ‘Take Home’ books to encourage the practise and sharing of the reading skills they are learning at school. They also personally select books from our Library to foster reading for interest and enjoyment.

We provide Classroom Helper training and welcome parents and grandparents to assist us, particularly during the Literacy block. Through this partnership, we are able to provide more opportunities for students to showcase their skills and to also receive more encouragement and praise for the knowledge, understanding and skills they are learning at school.