All educators know the first few years of schooling are crucial to establishing a strong framework for reading and spelling success.

With recent updates to the curriculum and a number of reports outlining the large number of Australian students not mastering the necessary reading skills, schools are actively seeking to implement effective, evidence-informed reading practices and resources.

This workshop will equip you with essential knowledge and practical recommendations to implement structured literacy lessons using systematic synthetic phonics and decodable readers.

Who is this for?

• early years classroom teachers, learning support teachers and teacher aides (Foundation–Year 2)
• stage leaders, literacy leaders and curriculum coordinators

What’s covered?

• a look at the core components of learning to read and spell, including the research-based model The Simple View of Reading ^{1, 2}
• an overview of the importance of building strong phonemic awareness in the early years
• insights into the instructional principles that underpin a systematic sequence of introducing phoneme–grapheme relationships
• an in-depth look at the Sound Waves Foundation and Year 1 resources, where you’ll delve into a sample weekly schedule and unpack each key lesson component
• an explanation of the key features of effective decodable readers and how they should be incorporated into early years literacy lessons
• a review of effective spelling and reading assessment schedules to monitor student progress, identify strengths and weaknesses and provide targeted remediation where required
• a deep dive into the range of Sound Waves Literacy resources used to support high-quality reading and spelling instruction

This workshop runs for about one hour, and you’ll receive a PD certificate of participation. Register now, or contact us if you have any questions.

References
1. Hoover, WA & Gough, PB 1990, ‘The simple view of reading’, Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 127-160, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00401799
2. Hoover, WA & Tunmer, WE 2018, ‘The simple view of reading: three assessments of its adequacy’, Remedial and Special Education, vol. 39, no. 5, pp. 304-312, https://doi.org/10.1177/0741932518773154