We have a significant focus on literacy at Terang College and provide a broad range of experiences for our students to enable them to develop their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Lessons are structured according to our instructional models, which allow for best practice teaching and learning. Through these lessons, students learn to read, view, speak, write, create and reflect on increasingly complex spoken and written texts across a variety of contexts with accuracy, fluency and purpose. P-6 In P-6, students form the foundations of their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills that set them up for success across a broad range of curriculum areas. We utilize a variety of quality literature and facilitate experiences that enable students to develop a love of literacy. Students are immersed into a world of exciting literary experiences through whole group, small group and individualized instruction. The basis for our programs is around phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and oral language. Some examples of the programs and practices we utilize at Terang College: · Sounds Write (Systematic synthetic phonics) as the basis for reading, writing and spelling · Workshop model for reading and writing · Common assessments, data analysis and unit planning practices · Learning intentions and differentiated success criteria · Metacognitive strategies through individual student reflections on success criteria · Cued articulation when teaching sounds · Colorful Semantics as the basis for beginning sentence structure · Story Grammar for narrative planning and writing · Big Write and VCOP · Literacy Pro and PM Reading for online literature Lessons include explicit teaching through modelled and shared reading and writing, guided reading and writing, reciprocal reading, individual conferences, independent and guided practice. 7-12 Common literacy practices are embedded across all subject areas at Terang College. Teams of teachers work together in professional learning communities to plan for and teach lessons that build students’ literacy skills across the curriculum in a consistent manner. Reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are not only taught in English, but in all key learning areas. Whole group, small group and individual instruction is embedded into each lesson to cater for the needs of all students. Some of our common practices across the secondary years include: · Explicit teaching of content-specific vocabulary · Learning intentions and success criteria · Opportunities to develop oral language skills through oral presentations, speeches and debates · Teaching of editing processes · Utilizing specific reading strategies to enable students to decode, interpret, analyse, make judgements about and respond to a variety of texts and media · Responding to learning through text responses, creative writing, factual writing, arguments, reports, explanations, procedures and oral presentations These literacy practices enable students to understand, create and respond to a variety of texts and information, which allows them to develop deep knowledge and understanding of each curriculum area. Literacy practices at Terang College are consistent, engaging, and purposeful and allow our students to build the skills to set them up in whatever career they wish to pursue.