Literacy education is not just about mastering reading and writing skills; it’s about fostering a lifelong love for learning and communication. Students are equipped with the foundational skills needed to navigate the complexities of the written word with confidence and fluency. From phonics and decoding strategies to comprehension and critical analysis, our approach emphasises both the mechanics and the joy of literacy. 

Reading

All students at Templestowe Valley Primary School participate in Reader’s Workshop every day. During these sessions students learn effective strategies for life-long reading.

What does a reading session at Templestowe Valley look like?

The reading session starts with the teacher identifying the learning intention and success criteria, followed by a mini-lesson where the teacher demonstrates important strategies for reading using a variety of rich texts; both fiction and non-fiction.

The reading strategies taught are derived from the CAFÉ Reading system. The students are taught specific strategies in; comprehension, accuracy, fluency and expanding vocabulary. A significant part of the Reader’s Workshop is devoted to the students reading independently and practising reading strategies with their self-selected just right books. Teachers conference with students. They work one to one with students to discuss and set reading goals. Students have an opportunity in Reader’s Workshop to respond to text read and think about the reading they have done.

Making successful readers at Templestowe Valley

Reading is more than just saying the words or getting from the beginning of the book to the end.

To be successful readers, children need to be able to comprehend text. Research shows that there are strategies we can demonstrate to children as we read that will help them gain more understanding during reading.

Throughout the year, teachers explicitly teach comprehension strategies to aid understanding. The school has adopted a whole school approach to the explicit teaching of comprehension strategies.

Information and tips in relation to comprehension strategies are often included in year level newsletters. The best education for students occurs when teachers and parents work together.

Writing

In Writing, students take part in daily Writer’s Workshop. This builds students’ fluency through continuous, repeated exposure to the process of writing.

What does a writing session at Templestowe Valley look like?

Similar to Reader’s Workshop, students take part in a mini-lesson at the beginning of each writing session where the teacher models the craft of writing using rich mentor texts, with a focus on one of the 6+1 Writing Traits. Students develop an understanding and work through the Stages of Writing used by successful writers: Planning, Composing, Recording, Revising, Editing and Publishing.

Following the explicit teaching, students are given opportunities for independent writing time, including the use of Writer’s Notebook as inspiration to guide their ‘free choice’ writing. During this time, the teacher conferences with individual or small groups of students to discuss and enhance their writing and set individual goals. Concluding the session, students share their work on the ‘Author’s Chair’ and seek feedback from their teacher and peers.

At school students learn to be authors and illustrators of many different types of writing, supporting this at home is vital. Writing is about taking risks, it doesn’t matter if you’re spelling or handwriting isn’t perfect. We are all on a journey! And as we say, “Mistakes are proof you’re learning!”

Spelling is taught from Prep to Year 6 with students taught the process of linking individual speech sounds (phonemes) to written symbols (grapheme). To begin with children are taught one way of writing down each of the phonemes, they are then gradually introduced to more spelling alternatives for each of 44 phonemes.

Speaking and Listening

In Speaking and Listening, students are given ample opportunities to take part in whole class discussions, small group work and oral presentations each term. This enables students to develop their oral language in a variety of situations.