Structured Literacy

4/3/25

Structured Literacy
Literacy Connections Day 2

GAME Fluency practice game (race or timed) for more advance learners

WORD DETECTIVES Tell me what you know about this word -

• Hi Open syllable

• Jazz Floss rule/closed syllable

Longer Spelling After A Short Vowel (L.S.R.A.S.V) ck  tch 

-CK = /k/

sock

pick

The duck is at the bank.

Digraph

SH 

Give examples at the beginning and end of the word

shop

fish

ship

“K takes the i and e.  C takes the other 3! And the consonants”

Silent e syllable (move to end of stage 6??)

*Get words on the board first*

Vowel - consonant - e

safe

hide

bone

E is giving its power to the short vowel.

Pitfalls

-When an s is trapped between two vowels it says z. e.g  rose

-U can say u and oo e.g. flute

-y can say i and y e.g. hype

a_e

e_e

i_e

o_e
u_e

Gentle Cindy

“I J Q U V at the end of a word it cannot be.”

Paint Day ai and ay

The kid put the cake on a plate 

Goat in the snow oa and ow

RESCUE THE NEWT

Ue = long u

cue 

rescue

ew=short u

stew

Newt

Blue Crew

ue = long /oo/

glue

ew=short 

Claw Sauce

Phase 1: au spelling at the beginning and middle of a word

Aw spelling often at the end of words

Phase 2: often use aw spelling before words ending in 

claw aw = /aw/   fraud  aw = /aw/

Structured Literacy

3/3/25

Structured Literacy
Literacy Connections

Day 1

Same as last year

The Brain

We need to teach reading.  It’s not natural.  We all learn to read the same way no matter what language.

If you have dyslexia they find it difficult to pick out these sounds.

Neurotypical -see a word 4-14 times

Dyslexia - 200+ times

Need a quiet space, explicit teaching, lots of sleep.  SUCCESS DELIVERS DOPAMINE.

Reading becomes effortless and immediate.

Word Recognition x Language comprehension = Skilled reader 

The Big Five

Structured Literacy instruction is an umbrella term to describe evidence-based programmes and approaches used to teach students how to read.

Explicit Instruction: Anita Archer - perky pace

Why Explicit Instruction?

Discovery learning is only viable after explicit instruction.

We don’t give adequate practice.

Three types of practice

• Deliberate

• Spaced Practice (over time)

• Retrieval

Students need to be actively engaged.

If it hasn’t changed my long term memory we haven’t learned it.

In order for the learning to be in the long term memory we need the three types of practice.

When your brain goes into overload you cannot make a decision.

Our working memory can bottle neck. One thing at a time.

The earlier you catch literacy difficulties, the less their is to fix.

deb - dyslexia evidence based.

Phoneme - smallest unit of sound

• Phoneme and grapheme relationship (sound and letter proficiency)

Yr 3 and above use David Kilpatric assessment

Phonological awareness is an awareness of the sound structure of spoken words. 

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to isolate, identify, blend, segment and manipulate individual phonemes in words.

Phonics instruction focuses on the relationship between written letters and sounds.

To read words we are decoding

To write words we are encoding

Example below ↴

Sound bars - headphones so we can hear what the sound is saying

Emma Nahna - sound foundations

Start with basic code and bring in more complex code over time.

Assessment