At Sunbury Heights Primary School, we have a strong focus on literacy where all students are supported to become confident readers, writers, and communicators. Our teachers use evidence-based strategies, data analysis, and the Readers and Writers Workshop models to plan learning that targets each student’s point of need. Classroom instruction is differentiated, and students work closely with their teacher to set personal reading and writing goals, regularly monitor their progress, and engage in meaningful, purposeful literacy experiences.

In literacy we:

• • have a clearly documented and sequential curriculum in speaking and listening, reading and writing based on The Victorian Curriculum
  • use the ‘Readers Workshop Model’ where students engage in such experiences as explicit teaching sessions, independent reading, shared reading and conferencing to establish personal reading goals
  • use both formal and informal assessments to drive our teaching to target the ‘point of need’ of each student
  • explicitly teach phonics, spelling and vocabulary across reading and writing
  • regularly involve students in extended periods of independent reading
  • use the ‘Writing Workshop Model’ to explicitly teach writing skills and the 6+1 traits, including Writer’s Notebooks for students to develop their ideas
  • engage students in writing conferences with their teacher to establish personal writing goals
  • teach specific writing strategies (repetition, simile, alliteration, hyperbole etc.)