Our Journey

The Big 6
Activities
What changes we have made
Our challenges and
successes
I thought I knew how to
teach reading
• Phonics instruction

• Sight word lists

• Spelling lists

• Spelling activities

• Whole class reading - Big Book

• Guided reading

• Take home levelled readers

 Running
Record

• Fluent reader

• Expression

• Sight word knowledge

• Quick recall of words

Phonics test
 PSC

• 18/40

• Real words 11/20

• Nonsense words 7/20

• Why is she able to read a level 16 reader if she has difficulty
decoding?
• Why is her phonics screening check score so low?
• Why is her running record level so high?
• What are her strengths?
• What is she struggling with?
• What is happening for her to have such a large ‘discrepancy’
between the phonics screening check and her running record
level?
• How are these tests useful or insightful to inform my teaching of
reading?
• Is one of these tests more useful than the other?
• Where to from here for this student?
 The Big 6
• Phonological Awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Comprehension
• Vocabulary
• Oral language
 Phonological
Awareness
• Rhythm

• Rhyme

• Sounds

• Syllables
 Phonological Awareness
Activities
• Clapping syllables of words

• Learning how to find syllables in words

• Splitting words into syllables when learning spelling patterns

• Splitting words into syllables when learning decoding strategies

• Segmenting sounds and manipulating sounds orally in singing

games

• Segmenting sounds and manipulating sounds using letter tiles

 Other activities

• Syllabification

• Letter tiles and string of words for segment and manipulate

for new words

• Willoughby Wallaby woo

 Oral Language
Children who are engaged in complex conversations;

• Expand their vocab

• Use complex language structures in their speech

• Are risk takers

• Become confident communicators

• Improve their comprehension of their world

Oral Language Activities
• Expanding students vocabulary by teaching technical
words

• Intentionally and explicitly teach new vocab using picture

books

• Singing when learning to spell sight words/ tricky words

• Singing when learning technical vocab and their meaning

• Oral sentence making activities

Verb Song
 Group Activity

• Oral sentence making

 Vocabulary

• Improves students likelihood of being able to read a word

and make meaning of it within a text, thus improving
comprehension
 Vocabulary Activities

• Teaching technical language as vocabulary words.

• Explicitly identifying new words in picture books

• Identifying new words in guided readers

• Using vocab words in everyday situations

 Group Activity
• Giraffes Can’t Dance
 Fluency

• Accuracy

• Pace

• Phrasing

• Expression
 Fluency Activities

• Teach a small number of high frequency words, e.g. I, the,

my, a, is

• Model how fluent readers read

• Provide students with a variety of decodable texts to read

• Independent level take home readers

 Comprehension
• Pace

• Making connections

• Making and monitoring predictions

• Visualising

• Inferring

• Summarising

• Synthesising
 Comprehension
Activities

• Improving vocabulary

• Reading books and modelling comprehension strategies

• Summarising guided readers

 Phonics

• Relationship between letters and sounds

 Phonics Activities

• Explicit, systematic, synthetic phonics

• Repeated opportunities to learn and practise phonemes,

spelling patterns and rules

• Immediate opportunities to practise new phonemes in

decodable guided readers and take home readers
Decodable readers v levelled
readers
Why decodable readers?
• Reading success comes from being able to decode 80%
of a text

• 10-15% of children in Australia are dyslexic or show

dyslexic behaviours when learning to read
Where can you access decodable
readers?
• Check your school library, Fitzroy readers

• SPELD website

• Education Resource stores

-Dandelion readers

-Little Learners Love Literacy

-Aussie Decodables
 What’s changed?

• What are we doing now for our advanced students?

• What are we doing for our struggling readers?

 Advanced decoders

• Comprehension strategies

• Decodable texts

• Spelling sight words

 Struggling decoders
• In class repetition

• Teach at a slower pace

• Decodable readers

• Spelling words
 How have we improved our
teaching of reading?

• What ARE we doing that we didn’t used to do?

• What AREN’T we doing that we used to do?

What are we doing now?
• Incorporating more oral language into phonics teaching

• Teach phonics at a slower pace with repetition

• Articulation of sounds

• More explicit phonological awareness

• Teaching technical language

• Each child reads to teacher more regularly

• Improving vocab through picture books

What are we doing now?
• Daily handwriting practise

• Spelling of sight words using letter names and slower pace

• Spelling words after taught in class

• Use decodable readers and texts

• Students choose their own readers

• Letter tiles to blend and segment words

What aren’t we doing now?
• Teaching 42 sounds in a term

• Sight word lists

• Using levelled readers

• Weekly spelling lists, contract and weekly spelling tests

• Unnecessary assessments that don’t provide valuable

information

• Teaching reading strategies picture clues, predicting

 What were/are our challenges?

• Implementing a new literacy program across 5 classes

• Parents understanding of phonics based approach to

teaching reading

• Shifting parents mindsets about decodable readers v

levelled readers
 What are our
successes?

• Collaborative team

• Ability to decode

• Reading fluently and with more understanding

• Growth in spelling
 Where to from here?
• Whole school reading approach, what is it? What does it look like?

• Further professional development on reading

• What are high achieving schools doing?

• Intervention program for students who need it

• Continue parent workshops to improve their understanding

• Continue to improve our small group work

• Including parents as helpers in small group time

Q&A