Literacy @ Roxy
At Roxburgh Park Primary School, we recognise literacy as being an integral part of daily life. We aim to develop children’s skills in thinking, speaking and listening, reading and writing as they are important in all areas of the curriculum. Literacy Learning at Roxburgh Park Primary School is focused on developing competent, confident and independent, readers and writers.
Students engage in focused literacy instruction each day. A comprehensive assessment and monitoring program supports teachers to track student learning and deliver targeted teaching across all areas of the English curriculum. Their progress is continually monitored during regular conferences with the teacher.
We teach reading and writing through the Workshop Model across the school from Foundation to Grade 6. This is a lesson structure that uses a range of core teaching practices in order to support students to independently apply skills and strategies. As a whole school students have lessons daily that include:
- A mini lesson where the skills of reading and writing are explicitly taught and modelled to students
- Independent reading and writing work
- Reading and writing conferences
- Small Group Instruction and strategy groups
- Reflection time
The reading workshop incorporates the explicit teaching of decoding, fluency and comprehension skills. Students learn to analyse, evaluate and respond to texts. They are provided with opportunities to apply their skills through independent reading and a range of purposeful reading tasks.
We aim to foster a lifelong love of reading. We provide a wide range of imaginative and informative texts which provide opportunities for children to question, make connections, infer meaning and develop deeper understandings about their world. Classroom libraries have been established so students have access to a wide variety of reading material that is ‘just right’ for them.
Students are taught to write for a range of audiences and purposes. By linking writing with our inquiry learning units, students are provided with authentic opportunities for writing. They learn to plan, draft, revise, edit and publish texts in a range of genres. Through the study of mentor texts, students explore the qualities of good writing and learn how to apply these in their own writing. The students are also explicitly taught the conventions of grammar, punctuation and handwriting in order to become successful writers.
The explicit teaching of speaking and listening skills is embedded in literacy lessons. Students learn the skills and language required across a range of contexts such as everyday communication, literature discussions and presentations.
A positive and structured environment is created to enable students to develop the skills and attitudes to become active, self-directed learners. Through choice, reflection, goal setting and assessments, students are empowered to take ownership of their own learning.