Our school adopts the aims of the Western Australian English Curriculum. We strive towards ensuring that our students:

• Learn to listen to, read, view, speak, write, create and reflect on increasingly complex and sophisticated spoken, written and multimodal texts across a growing range of contexts with accuracy, fluency and purpose
• Appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and develop a sense of its richness and power to evoke feelings, convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue
• Understand how Standard Australian English works in its spoken and written forms and in combination with non-linguistic forms of communication to create meaning
• Develop interest and skills in inquiring into the aesthetic aspects of texts, and develop an informed appreciation of literature

Please see our full KPS Literacy Policy for further information.

Our Literacy Policy covers three major content areas; Spelling and Grammar, Reading and Writing.

KPS are committed to researching and adopting evidence-based teaching and learning strategies and our Literacy Committee works tirelessly to develop these skills across the school.

Instruction

The staff at KPS aim to timetable a minimum of four Literacy Blocks across the week. These blocks run for approximately 110 minutes and cover all aspects of the English Curriculum. The English Committee, in collaboration with external agencies and research, have developed a Kindergarten, PP-2 and a 3-6 Literacy Block Template which covers the following:

• Daily Review
• Spelling (Sounds Write PP-2, Sound Waves 3-6)
• Fluency Pairs (3-6)
• Reading (whole class and small group)
• Writing (Talk 4 Writing)
• Handwriting

Celebrating Literacy at KPS

At KPS, we promote literacy development in a fun and engaging way. Reading Rewards are given out twice termly at assembly to recognise students in Kindergarten to Year 6 who have demonstrated an enthusiasm towards reading. KPS also celebrates Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book Week with a week of events that includes activities such as Masked Teacher, Design a Book Cover, Guess the Book and culminating with a dress up day and community picnic. Our wonderful librarian, Mrs Chadbund, provides our students with a fantastic library experience complete with book displays, highlighting different authors, and co-ordinating Book Fair to raise money for new resources. We also recognise National Simultaneous Story Time across the school.

Assisting Your Child to Read and Write

Students in Pre-primary to Year 2 participate in the systematic, synthetic phonics program, Sounds Write. Sounds Write provides a highly structured, multi-sensory, incremental and code-oriented instructional approach to teaching children to read and spell. The program begins with one sound/one syllable CVC words (initial code) and builds up to multi-syllabic words (extended code). Sounds Write is recognised by the Dyslexia SPELD Foundation as an ‘exceptionally well-developed synthetic phonics program’. It is also used as a small group intervention strategy at KPS.

Please follow the links below to register for free tutorials that may assist you in following up on these skills at home.

https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write/

https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write-part-2/