ENGLISH

 

Freshwater Bay teaches the English Western Australian Curriculum that aims to ensure that students:

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• learn to listen to, read, view, speak, write, create, and reflect on increasingly complex and sophisticated spoken, written and multimodal texts across a continuum of contexts with accuracy, fluency and purpose.

• appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and develop a sense of its richness and power to evoke feelings, convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue.

• understand how Standard Australian English works in its spoken and written forms and in combination with non-linguistic forms of communication to create meaning.

• develop interest and skills in inquiring into the aesthetic aspects of texts and develop an informed appreciation of literature.

 

Early Childhood: Kindergarten to Year 2

A structured literacy block encompassing researched informed programs including Heggerty, Letters and Sounds, MacqLit and Talk for Writing.

 

Primary: Intermediate and Upper Primary

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An instructional literacy block based on evidence-based programs, including the highly instructional program Spelling Mastery and an extension spelling program that blends phonemic, morphemic, and whole-word approaches, effectively teaches critical spelling skills to students. Additionally, there are daily reviews that are short, quick-paced consolidations of phoneme/grapheme correspondences, blending, segmenting, vocabulary, and reading and writing English concepts. From Year One to Six, our students partake in the Lexia reading program, which is grounded in the Science of Reading philosophy. Lexia Core 5 is a research-proven program that accelerates the development of literacy skills for students of all abilities, helping them make the critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn. The Seven Steps writing program develops students’ writing skills, improves their results, and increases confidence and enjoyment in writing.

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Talk 4 Writing is an exceptionally effective instructional approach for both oral language and early writing development. The program highlights the importance of oral language development as the essential foundation for the reading and writing process.  Students internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with teachers using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully. Below is an example of some of our students ‘talking the text’ of Jack and the Beanstalk.

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