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What's the buzz?

In this lesson students use BeeBots and Scratch Junior to synthesize what they know about Bees and are introduced to mapping concepts. This lesson idea was created by Karen Butler.

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Your child's literacy development milestones

This suite of information is ideal for educating families about their child's literacy development . It provides a guide to development in the areas of oral language, reading and writing. Key milestones are listed within broad age groups: beginning (0-3 years), early emergent (3 to 5 years) and early years of school. The ...

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What is the Year 1 Phonics Check?

This information is ideal for educating families about the Year 1 Phonics Check (a free assessment that assesses students' decoding skills). It provides links to a list of words similar to the ones used in the Phonics Check, and a guide that explains how the words should be pronounced.

Online

Schoolyard biodiversity detectives

Collect data on the biodiversity in garden beds around your school to measure the biodiversity (that is the different types of plants and animals). Explore ways to represent and present data. This lesson was devised by Linda McIver, Australian Data Science Education Institute.

Online

Number: Taking handfuls

This sequence of 6 tasks explores relationships between numbers 1 to 20 through subitising, comparison, and using 5 and 10 as benchmarks. Students organise collections and use subitisable patterns to help count the total in their collection. Students also compare their collection with a friend to see who has more and who ...

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The Big Six of Literacy: a guide for families

This suite of information is ideal for educating families about the six key components that contribute to successful beginning reading (known as the Big Six). It outlines how each of the six elements (oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension) contribute to reading success and ...

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How schools teach literacy

This information is ideal for educating families about their child's language development. It explains how schools teach oral language (speaking and listening), reading and writing. It provides information about literacy development in these areas including the activities children participate in at school, the skills they ...

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Phonics: a guide for families

This information is ideal for educating families about phonics including why and how it is taught in schools, and how families can help at home. The information can also be downloaded as a PDF in English and 11 other languages.

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Resources to support reading at home

This information is ideal for educating families about ways they can support their child's reading development at home. It includes links to a range of helpful resources.

Online

Sow a seed, grow a feed

Engage young learners’ senses as they grow food from a seed. They can learn about caring for a living thing, experience the joy of watching something grow and harvesting healthy edible food. The activity provides opportunities for development of science, sustainability and maths concepts. OUTCOMES of this learning activity ...

Downloadable

Sample phonics lesson slides - beginner

This slide pack is a sample of a phonics lesson for students at the beginning of their phonics learning. It is aligned with an explicit instruction model.

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Assessment and intervention for an SSP approach

This self-paced learning module outlines the specific areas of knowledge and skills that are assessed for a systematic synthetic phonics approach to teaching reading and spelling. It explains how this approach to assessment is helpful to identify student needs across the Response to Intervention framework. It contains a ...

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Focus on Indonesia: Cross Curriculum Connections in Primary Schools

Ideas and resources that connect the learning of Indonesian language with other learning areas.

Online

Direct and indirect comparisons: Foundation – planning tool

This planning resource for Foundation is for the topic of Direct and indirect comparisons. Students are introduced to measurement through direct comparison.

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For school leaders: Understanding the evidence

This webpage provides information and resources for school leaders about the evidence and research on how students learn to read. It discusses cognitive load theory, explicit instruction, a whole-school curriculum approach, the Big Six of literacy and using a systematic synthetic phonics approach to instruction.

Video

Teaching irregular words

This short video (4 minutes and 3 seconds) shows two teachers discussing why and how to teach irregular words (words that contain letter-sound correspondences that students have not yet learned) as part of a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) approach.

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Demonstration of a daily review

This video provides a demonstration of a phonics daily review using explicit instruction principles. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.

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For school leaders: Leading effective practice

This webpage provides information for school leaders on how to drive quality instruction and improve student literacy outcomes. It recommends a range of resources that can be used to support leaders in coaching and mentoring staff in best practice literacy instruction.

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How to target decoding practice at point of need

This video provides an explanation of how to prepare students so they are ready to use decodable words and sentences to practise their phonics skills. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.

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How to use decodable texts

This video provides a demonstration of how to use a decodable book. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.