Literacy & English Instruction
At St Catherine of Siena Primary School we provide a structured approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling that strives to meet the learning needs of all students. We explicitly teach the building blocks of language in a systematic and sequential way in order to support each child to become confident communicators, imaginative thinkers and informed citizens.
Daily two hour literacy blocks provide whole class, small group and individual learning opportunities in which students develop their skills in:
- Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Knowledge (reading and spelling)
- Vocabulary, Reading Fluency, and Comprehension
- Handwriting
- Writing: Including sentence structure (grammar/punctuation) and text structures
We use several evidence-based programs to develop students’ phonological awareness, phonics knowledge, decoding, vocabulary, and writing skills:
- Heggerty Phonemic Awareness
- SoundsWrite (structured synthetic phonics program for reading and spelling)
- Talk 4 Writing
- Colourful Semantics (vocabulary and sentence structure)
Library
St Catherine of Siena Primary School boasts a vibrant, well resourced school library.
Our library collection offers a broad range of reading materials across a range of genres and reading levels. Students have an opportunity each week to visit our library to borrow books and engage in shared story reading. Our library is also open throughout the week at lunch times for students to engage in quiet reading, board-game play or participate in some of our other lunchtime ‘clubs’.
