English is central to the learning and development of all students at Kardinya Primary School.
The study of English helps our students to develop confidence in communicating, allows them to be critical and imaginative thinkers, and provides them with the skills needed for life.
The teaching of English is consistent with the Western Australian English Curriculum which is divided into three content strands:
Reading is a fundamental skill. Reading high-quality literature allows students to learn about the world around them and expand their experiences.
In our classroom’s, reading instruction has a focus on teaching instructional reading and comprehension strategies. Students are exposed to modelled, shared and whole class guided reading within the classroom and practice their fluency daily using partner-reading.
In all Kindergarten to Year Two classrooms, students participate in a daily phonemic awareness. Kindergarten students use the program ‘Cracking the Code’, which is a games-based program while Year One and Two students complete a series of short phonemic awareness activities using the ‘Phonological Awareness Handbook’.
Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than children who have never been read to.
Students also visit the library each week and are encouraged to borrow books.
The State Library of Western Australia’s Better Beginnings site has information and resources to start your child’s reading journey, from birth.
Students should finish pre-primary being able to:
If students do not know these things by the end of Pre-Primary, they will be behind in their reading development and find it difficult to remain on track with their learning in Year One.
At Kardinya Primary School, students are taught to write a variety of text types including imaginative, informative and persuasive. Teachers delve deep into these text types to examine the structure, language features and grammar concepts. K-2 students use the writing program ‘Talk for Writing’ which is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills. Quality writing is created by first expanding and developing students’ oral language skills and then teaching the necessary steps for exceptional sentence, paragraph and text construction.
A current school focus is developing our students’ editing skills and processes. Starting in Pre-Primary, the Western Australian Curriculum states that students will be able to reread and edit their writing to improve punctuation, spelling, text structure, grammar and meaning by the time they reach Year 6.
Our new approach to editing at Kardinya Primary School is focused on ensuring consistency across our school in the use of symbols and processes of editing. These symbols are used by teachers and students to edit and improve writing. This consistency across our school will support students to continue developing a strong understanding of editing and ultimately improve their writing.
To improve students’ editing process, they are being introduced to our 5 Star Editing Checklist and Pyramids (Connectives and Punctuation). The checklist and pyramids support students to edit with the goal of improving not just punctuation and spelling but also meaning and detail. These elements are explicitly taught within our classrooms.
At Kardinya Primary School students are taught to write using the Peggy Lego program and use the South Australian Font. This program is a systematic way to teaching prewriting patterns, which form the basis of all letters of the alphabet. Peggy Lego breaks down letters into seven pencil movements and then supports students to learn correct letter formation with these patterns.
As students’ progress through their primary schooling, they are taught to use a variety of strategies to engage in group and class discussions and make presentations. We work to develop effective listeners and students who contribute actively, ask questions, and communicate successfully.