English / Foundation / Language / Phonics and word knowledge

Curriculum content descriptions

Understand how to use knowledge of letters and sounds including onset and rime to spell words (ACELA1438)

Elaborations
  • recognising the most common sound made by each letter of the alphabet, including consonants and short vowel sounds, for example ‘p-op’
  • breaking words into onset and rime, noticing words that share the same pattern, for example ‘p-at’, ‘b-at’
  • breaking words into onset and rime to learn how to spell words that share the same pattern, for example ‘p-at’, ‘b-at’, ‘t-all’ and ‘f-all’
  • building word families using onset and rime, for example ‘h-ot’, ‘g-ot’, ‘n-ot’, ‘sh-ot’
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
ScOT terms

Spelling,  Syllables

Interactive

Little Stars - Word Wizard - iTunes app

Learn and practise spelling and word recognition, on your own or with a partner, in this space-themed game. Answer questions to move your rocket ship and earn stickers on the way. Includes over 150 CVC words. Free when reviewed 6/6/15.

Interactive

Letter planet: a, e, o

Help a stranded space traveller return home by filling three fuel tanks with words that have the same letter. Select words with 'a', 'e' or 'o' in them. Read and listen to model words. Select similar words with the same vowel and place them in the fuel tank. Then construct sentences by putting words in the appropriate order. ...

Online

Creating change as a literacy coach

This teacher resource describes how a literacy coach made a substantial difference to students' literacy achievements, teachers' involvement in literacy strategies and whole-school culture at Allendale East Area School in South Australia. Organised in nine sections: Summary; Target student group; Method; Results; Lessons ...

Online

TrackSAFE Education Primary School Resources: Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 English

This unit of work focuses on developing student understanding of the importance of being track safe and the key message 'Stop, Look, Listen, Think'. It builds students' familiarity with the vocabulary and key concepts related to rail safety and provides differentiated activities for writers at different stages of development ...

Interactive

Phonics Fun 4 - iTunes app

Learn letter sounds and rime as you tap pictures and hear letter sounds. Match the letters and sounds to the pictures. Covers 9 letter sounds (a, e, i, o, u, qu, sh, z, v), 5 rimes (ip, ot, x, at, un) in 75 words. Free when reviewed 6/6/15.

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Spelling generalisations

This document outlines spelling generalisations included in the Literacy Hub phonics progression and explains teaching points relating to each one that may be used to support instruction in your systematic, synthetic phonics aligned classroom.

Downloadable

Phonics lesson student worksheet: Spelling generalisation for soft g and soft c

This worksheet is for independent student practice of concepts taught in the phonics lesson for the soft g and soft c sounds (sometimes known as the ‘Gentle Cindy’ rule).

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For school leaders: Leading effective practice

This webpage provides information for school leaders on how to drive quality instruction and improve student literacy outcomes. It recommends a range of resources that can be used to support leaders in coaching and mentoring staff in best practice literacy instruction.

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Progress monitoring tools Phases1-5

These tools support teachers to monitor individual and whole-class student progress in Phases 1-5 of the Literacy hub phonics progression, and instructional notes for the teacher are provided. Each phase has a student reference page and a teacher marking sheet.

Assessment

Progress monitoring tool template

This Word template assists teachers to create their own progress monitoring tools to align with a school's phonics progression.

Image

Gradual release o f responsibility and response to intervention inforgraphic

This infographic shows the gradual release of responsibility model and how it aligns with the level of support needed following a Response to Intervention (RTI) model.

Downloadable

Phonics lesson slides: Spelling generalisation for ff ll ss zz

This sample slideshow presents a ready-to-use phonics lesson to teach the spelling generalisation for the ff ll ss zz spelling pattern (sometimes known as the 'floss' rule), with teacher notes indicating how to teach each part of the lesson.

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For school leaders: Understanding the evidence

This webpage provides information and resources for school leaders about the evidence and research on how students learn to read. It discusses cognitive load theory, explicit instruction, a whole-school curriculum approach, the Big Six of literacy and using a systematic synthetic phonics approach to instruction.

Video

Demonstration of a daily review

This video provides a demonstration of a phonics daily review using explicit instruction principles. It is presented by literacy specialists Elaine Stanley and Rebecca McEwan.

Video

Q&A session: Making a start with a phonics progression and phonological awareness instruction

This recording of a 30-minute Q&A session supports schools in choosing and following a systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) progression, including phonological and phonemic awareness instruction.

Downloadable

Phonics pair-game template

The pair games and activities in this document can be used as part of your systematic synthetic phonics program to encourage students to develop their phonics skills with peers during independent practice.

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Fluency and progress monitoring

This self-paced learning module explains fluency at the letter-sound correspondence level, word, sentence and whole-text level, and explains how to use a progress monitoring tool. It contains a webinar, free downloadable resources and further professional reading. It is the fourth of seven professional learning modules ...

Assessment

Progress monitoring tool Tracker Phases 11-15

This spreadsheet assists teachers to analyse the data collected in progress monitoring tools, to plan next steps for student learning. This file aligns with Phases 11-15 of the Literacy Hub phonics progression.

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Overview of assessment for phonics knowledge and skills

This document helps teachers create an assessment schedule that includes all the early phonics-related skills necessary for reading and spelling development from Foundation to Year 2.

Online

Spelling generalisations and SSP

This self-paced learning module outlines what makes English an opaque language and why it is valuable to teach students spelling generalisations. It explains how to support students to apply spelling generalsiations and how to incorporate them into your systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) lessons. The module contains two ...