Ko te reo te tuakiri
Ko te reo tōku ahurei
Ko te reo tō ora
Language is my identity
Language is my uniqueness
Language is life
Language has the power to enrich our lives. Our goal at Glenavon, is to provide education that allows children access to opportunities in life.
Glenavon literacy programmes endeavour to provide authentic contexts relevant to our school community.
The content of our programmes reflect our many cultures. Our teaching resources and library have a comprehensive range of materials that supports our diversity.
To meet the needs of our children, programmes are differentiated and the content is developed through explicit teaching.
We believe that to be successfully literate, our Glenavon students need to master three key areas of reading and writing: learning the code, making meaning, and thinking critically.
Learning the code
This means developing the ability to decode and encode written forms of language. The focus is on the conventions of written language and the skills required to read and write letters, words, and text. “Cracking the code” is an exciting intellectual challenge for learners.
making meaning
This involves developing and using knowledge, strategies, and awareness in order to get and convey meaning when reading or writing. It also involves understanding the forms and purposes of different texts and becoming aware that texts are intended for an audience.
thinking critically
Becoming literate involves reading and writing beyond a literal, factual level. It involves analysing meanings, responding critically to text when reading, and being critically aware when composing texts. It also involves responding to texts at a personal level, reflecting on them, and finding reward in being a reader and a writer.
We believe that the teaching of handwriting is not an end in itself. It is a skill which, along with spelling and punctuation, is an essential tool in effective written communication.
At Glenavon, the aim of teaching handwriting is to teach each child to write legibly, fluently, without strain, and with sufficient speed for all practical purposes. This is taught daily for 10 minutes a day. we follow https://thewritelesson.co.nz/as a school and intergrate our spelling programme into this.
handwriting
Literacy is integral in one form or another to help students experience success in all curriculum areas and in life. Its importance to each individual must not be underestimated.
Our aim is to create literate citizens that can access opportunities in life.
what does it look like?
Awa
BSLA- Better Start Literacy Approach is the basis for our literacy programme in the first two years at school. This will involve daily whole class phonics lessons (with links to reading and writing embedded) and guided reading sessions using decodable books. Assessment will be used to guide our teaching practice.
Moana
reading
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Guided reading happens 5 times a week in Moana.
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target children seen 3-4 times a week everyone else 2-3 times a week.
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run a rotation or must do’s and can do’s with a range of activities.
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follow up activities consist of phonics, cloze activities, comprehension activities, spelling, and Get Epic on the Ipads.
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following the BSLA planning which has 20 minutes of a phonemic focus, a high vocabulary book learning new vocabulary and small group reading.
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BSLA small group reading happens up to 1P then we transition into the colourwheel around level 12-15.
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teacher aide supports our reading program by taking our children needing extra support and focusing on reading mileage, high frequency words and comprehension.
writing
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Moana students write 5 times a week for 1 hour. This usually starts with a teacher model, then children either work independently and one/two times a week with the teacher.
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Our target children are seen twice a week and everyone else once a week.
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use a range of provocations children can relate to to inspire interesting vocabulary and writing.
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We use our classroom progressions level 1 and 2 of the curriculum to inform our long term plan and then these get broken down into our weekly plans.
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BSLA also has a link to writing where we respond to the high vocabulary book. This has a focus on characters, setting, a problem, and how the problem is fixed whilst highlighting a structure beginning, Middle and end.
RāKAU
reading
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Daily guided reading sessions at levels covering various genre
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Variety list (autonomy of various reading activities)
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Poem
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Daily read to
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Learning centre based on topic reading activities
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Weekly reading logs building home/school relationships
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Intentional integration of reading into other topics
writing
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Guided writing sessions at levels
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Writing warm ups
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Writing workshops
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Covering various genre
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Spelling
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Publishing opportunities
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Intentional integration of writing into other topics
Manu
Literacy in Manu occurs over the duration of two learning blocks, 4 times a week. Writing is split to focus on grammar and spelling, sentence structure and types and larger "main tasks" for the week where students are writing for a specific purpose and audience through a range of prompts. Students write mostly on paper, however there are frequent opportunities to publish and craft writing in digital form.
Our reading program focuses on building independent reading skills and support is there when required. we introduce students to a wide variety of texts to challenge critical thinking and creative thought.
our literacy program is supported by this document
spelling - our structured approach
our glenavon spelling programme is taught in all of our classes
from year 3 onwards.
Our spelling programme:
- deepening knowledge of morphology
- supports your writing programme
- is integrated into handwriting and throughout the day in other curriculum teaching
- follows the scope and sequence Spelling Made Simple- Helen Walls
Oral language
We believe oral language is the foundation for building effective literacy skills. Strategically planned oral language learning experiences will be part of daily teaching across the curriculum. This will also include explicit teaching of vocabulary related to learning contexts.