As part of our teaching approach at PHPS we
- use relevant and authentic texts and contexts to teach the English language and conventions
- use students’ oral language competencies as the starting point for teaching reading and writing
- engage students in speaking and listening tasks in English to consolidate and expand students understanding of the social and learning contexts and the purposes for which English is used. Students contribute to classroom discussions, logically sequence a small number of ideas in a personal story or retell, ask and appropriately responding to questions, listening to stories, give and follow instructions and participate in social interactions
- teach phonological knowledge and phonemic awareness –awareness of the sounds in spoken language including individual sounds within words
- teach the reading of simple, familiar and unfamiliar texts, including multimedia texts–comprehension, including prediction based on semantic and syntactic information, identifying the storyline, the use of pictures and diagrams, vocabulary, fluency and letter-sound relationships (phonics)
- teach comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning
- teach writing –composition of short imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, e.g. personal recounts, simple and sequenced texts about familiar topics in print and digital settings; including the correct use of capital letters, full stops and question marks, the formation of upper and lower case letters, spelling of frequently used vocabulary and strategies to attempt to spell unfamiliar words using frequently occurring letter patterns and letter-sound relationships