St Mary’s offers
- Structured literacy
- Explicit teaching
- Systematic synthetic phonics
- Multi-sensory, evidence based learning in Reading and Spelling in the Junior years
- Direct instruction into the five “big ideas” of reading.
From 2025, St. Mary’s is introducing a comprehensive whole class, explicit, reading and spelling program called InitiaLit in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2. This structured literacy program has been developed through Macquarie University Special Education Centre. InitiaLit will provide all students with the essential core knowledge and strong foundations to become successful readers and writers. It is a three-year program, covering the first years of school (typically Foundation to Year 2).
Staff at St. Mary’s have been teaching Reading and Spelling effectively for many years as our data will attest, however we are always looking to improve and, in responding to research and changes to the Victorian Curriculum, a collective decision was made to invest in the evidence based, systematic synthetic phonics program, InitiaLit. St Mary’s already uses two programs from the MultiLit suite of evidence based instructional programs – MiniLit Sage and MultiLit. These are our Reading Intervention programs. Further we will shortly be adding a targeted, evidence based spelling program SpellEx, also from Macquarie to our Year 3 and Year 4 teaching program.
What Is InitiaLit?
Phonics has been in the news for a while now. In February, the Grattan Institute released a report entitled ‘The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success’.
The Grattan Institute is an independent, public policy think tank which aims to ‘improve policy by engaging with decision makers and the broader community’. The release of the report made the news headlines as does any story regarding the teaching of reading. Reading is a critical life skill and standards across the country have been falling for some time according to international testing known as the PIRLS test.
The Grattan Institute report, as many reports before it have done, outlined the six key sub-skills needed for proficient reading (p.20)
- Oral language
- Phonemic awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension.
Whilst St. Mary’s has always taught these critical skills and has “bucked the trend” in Victoria achieving outstanding results in Literacy in previous NAPLAN assessments, InitiaLit will enhance ALL these critical subskills which, when taught explicitly and systematically, lead to efficient reading.
But Why InitiaLit?
InitiaLit takes a holistic approach to literacy instruction incorporating instruction in:
- systematic synthetic phonics,
- phonemic awareness,
- fluency,
- vocabulary and
- comprehension.
Oral language forms the basis for all of these sub-skills within the InitiaLit program.
This integrated approach ensures that students are given all the tools they require to learn to read successfully.
InitiaLit follows a structured scope and sequence which aligns with the new (in 2025) Victorian and the Australian Curriculum. It provides teachers with an explicit and effective model for teaching reading and related skills and allows for a consistent approach across year groups from Foundation to Year 2.
So What Does InitiaLit Look Like In The Classroom?
Many parents are keen to know that their children are being taught to read – and there is always much excitement when those first take home texts start coming home in Foundation.
The InitiaLit program will build a solid basis in one of the important subskills first before letter sound relationships are explored. So take home texts may not come home until later in Term 1 or early Term 2. This is because building a base of oral language and being able to hear sounds in words, hear rhyme and isolate sounds is critical to being able to understand the phonics sequence. Be patient! Your child will benefit from a solid foundation in early Foundation. Trust the teachers!
With some differences across the three year levels to account for the developmental stages of the students, the InitiaLit program for Foundation and Year 1 includes:
- Whole class explicit teaching of letters and sounds in a systematic way
- Targeted practise activities
- Teacher led small focus group work
- Handwriting
- Spelling
- Storybook sessions using rich literature to build text knowledge, comprehension and vocabulary
For Year Two the program includes:
- advanced alphabetic code
- spelling rules and morphological concepts
- comprehension strategies
- reading fluency
- key grammatical concepts
Students in Foundation and Year 1 will be bringing home decodable texts as they are taught the different letter sound correspondences which make up the alphabetic code. Some students may still bring home decodable texts in Year 2, however most students will be reading texts of their choice by the end of Year 2. Novel studies are also part of the Year 2 program.
How Can Parents Help At Home?
Parents are the first and best teachers of reading at home, on the couch with a beautiful picture story book from their home shelf or local or school library. Indeed, this will form the first twelve weeks of the InitiaLit Foundation program before any books are sent home for students to read TO parents. Comprehension, Vocabulary and Fluency can all be enhanced through reading together at home.
Read a storybook each day to your child and discuss the story, pointing out any new words to enrich their vocabulary. Spend time teaching your child nursery rhymes, songs and poems. Play language games. Talk about letters and sounds in the environment. When take home texts are sent home, make sure that you spend time listening to your child read, providing support to help them apply their knowledge about sounds and letters to the text.
Another way to assist at home is to practise reading and spelling tricky words. A list of words is found at the back of the Home Reading Diary. In addition to supporting your child’s reading and spelling, there are many ways to build your child’s vocabulary and oral language. Talk about words in the environment: the way they are spelled, what they mean, what they convey. Make up stories together, do a crossword, play I Spy, sing songs, answer riddles, visit the local library, limit screen time. All of these will help support your developing reader.
But What If My Child Struggles To Learn To Read?
Some children struggle to learn how to read. Always talk to your child’s teacher if you are worried about their reading or spelling. It is important to address any difficulties as early as possible so that extra support can be put in place to help them catch up.
The St Mary’s staff have completed their InitiaLit training and we are very excited about bringing it to life within our classrooms from 2025.
