Literacy

Letters and Sounds

Our Letters and Sounds programme teaches the skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. It progresses through all sounds, working from the simple to the more complex. By following the progression, children build on their growing phonic knowledge. They quickly learn to read and spell, having fun along the way. For more information please click here.

Research shows that to get every child reading and spelling it is best to teach phonics systematically and explicitly.

Soundwaves Spelling

Sound Waves Literacy is a systematic synthetic phonics approach to literacy instruction. At East Waikiki this program is used in morning literacy sessions from years 3 to 6.

The Sound Waves program has continuously evolved to meet the pedagogical and practical requirements of the modern classroom. Its latest improvements include new high-quality early years reading resources.

Sound Waves Literacy:
is evidence-informed
follows a systematic synthetic phonics sequence of instruction
is sequential and cumulative across the primary school year
provides lesson resources to help you explicitly teach phoneme–grapheme relationships and vocabulary concepts

Students can log in to Soundwaves to complete some online activities and games with the following link and password.
Student Login – Firefly Online (fireflyeducation.com.au)

class 11: been474
class 12: story029
class 15: with718
class 16: today453
class 17: step911
class 18: skip141
class 21: ball922
class 22: seven182

Oxford Word Lists:
Teaching sight cards

What are ‘sight words’?

Sight words are common and frequent words that occur in everyday reading and writing.
It is estimated that over 50% of English written material is made up of 220 frequent words.
Some sight words do not follow regular spelling rules so it is important to teach students to look for visual patterns of letters in words.

What is a ‘sight vocabulary’?

Sight vocabulary is the bank of words a reader recognises automatically, pronounces correctly and knows the meaning of in context. The spelling component of the T-9 Net writing and the vocabulary component of the reading continua identify the need for students. The vocabulary component of the T-9 Net reading continua identify progressions for the development of sight words in the early years, highlighting the need for the acquisition of an increasing bank of sight words.

How to teach sight words?

A good reading program builds the sight vocabulary of each student in order to assist reading fluency and comprehension.This is done by forming a strong connection between the printed word and its spoken equivalent and meaning. This connection is about:
  • the shape of the word;
  • the visual pattern in the sequence of the letters; and
  • any phonological clues the word might have.

Download a copy of the Oxford sight cards