English


At Spring Gully Primary School our students are engaged in a positive and supportive learning environment where every student is valued, praised and encouraged to take risks and ‘have a go’. Home-school partnerships are highly valued as a vital element of student success. Home reading is an integral part of student development in reading and is supported at each stage of learning with take-home reading material.

 

Our reading program consists of Daily 5 and CAFÉ/CRAFT. Daily 5 is a literacy management system which has 5 components- read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing and word work. Each component is introduced separately and students work to build their stamina to be able to independently work on a learning task. While the students are working independently the teacher works with individual students or with groups of students with similar needs to develop their reading, spelling or writing skills. CAFE is the literacy system that compliments the Daily 5 structure.


Posted on the classroom wall and built throughout the year, the CAFE Menu serves as a visual reminder of whole-class instruction as well as individual student goals. By focusing on the four key components of successful reading: Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary, and providing strategies to support each goal, the CAFE System is an efficient and effective way to assess, instruct, and monitor student progress. CRAFT is the senior school extension of the CAFE and incorporates the elements of R- Responding to text and T – Terms and Vocabulary.

 

Our whole-school writing program is based around the VCOP elements of Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation. It incorporates oral language to develop students’ individual writers’ voice. Students celebrate their writing with a fortnightly Big Write. Big Writing lessons are characterised by a ‘special’ atmosphere with a calm and quiet environment is created in the classroom and quiet music playing while the children write.

 

The Soundwaves program provides a whole-school phonics approach to teaching spelling. This approach is recognised as one of the most effective ways to teach spelling and reading skills.