ENGLISH
English Newsletter Term 1 2026
At Mooroolbark East Primary School, we are passionate about teaching English in a way that supports every child to succeed. Our approach is guided by the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 and informed by evidence-based teaching practices to ensure all students thrive.
Each day, students participate in at least two hours of English lessons, where they practise essential skills, such as speaking, listening, reading and writing. Our program focuses on the Big Six key areas of literacy: oral language (talking and listening), phonemic awareness (hearing sounds in words), phonics (understanding letter–sound relationships), fluency (reading smoothly), vocabulary (learning new words), and comprehension (understanding what they read).
JUNIORS YEARS – PREP TO GRADE 2
At Mooroolbark East Primary School, our younger students in Prep to Grade 2 learn to read and write through a structured, evidence-based approach using Jolly Phonics, a synthetic phonics program. This method helps children learn the sounds that letters and letter combinations make, enabling them to decode words and read with growing confidence.
Jolly Phonics uses a multisensory approach—incorporating actions, songs and stories—to make learning engaging and memorable. By the end of Prep, most students have learnt 42 initial sounds and some basic spelling rules. These foundations are built upon in Grades 1 and 2, as students continue to develop and refine their reading and writing skills.
Students take home decodable readers that are carefully matched to the sounds they have learnt in class, providing meaningful opportunities to practise reading at home. To strengthen the connection between home and school, we also send home Word Boxes and Tricky Word lists for additional practice.
By the end of Grade 2, our goal is for students to confidently recognise all key letter–sound relationships (including alternative spelling patterns) and a wide bank of high-frequency words. We refer to these as Tricky Words, as they do not always follow regular spelling patterns and need to be memorised.
We recognise that every child learns at their own pace. Some students move quickly through the sounds and are extended with more challenging decodable texts, while others receive targeted support to build strong early reading skills.
In addition to phonics, we also use a daily phonemic awareness program called Heggerty, which helps children hear, identify and manipulate sounds in words—an essential skill for developing strong reading ability.
Our aim in the junior years is to provide every child with a solid foundation in reading and writing by explicitly teaching phonics and phonemic awareness. These essential early literacy skills support and set students up for success in the middle and senior years.
MIDDLE AND SENIOR YEARS – GRADE 3 TO GRADE 6
From Grades 3 to 6, students build on the strong foundations established in the junior years. We continue to explicitly teach all elements of the Big Six of literacy—oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension—while supporting students to become confident, capable readers and writers.
Our spelling and grammar program, Jolly Grammar, extends students’ phonics knowledge and provides structured, explicit instruction in grammar, punctuation and spelling. Students also explore how words are formed, their origins, and word families to strengthen vocabulary and improve accuracy in writing.
As students progress, they begin to engage with a broader range of texts, including authentic (non-decodable) texts when they are ready. They read and write across a variety of genres, such as persuasive, imaginative and informative texts. Through the use of mentor texts, students learn to craft more complex ideas and paragraphs, drawing inspiration from skilled authors and examining what makes writing effective.
In the middle and senior years, we place a strong emphasis on building background knowledge and expanding vocabulary to support students as they read and write increasingly complex texts. Teaching is carefully differentiated to ensure every learner is both supported and challenged. Our goal is to foster growth and equip each child with the skills needed to become a successful reader and writer.
ENGLISH SUPPORT AND INTERVENTION
At Mooroolbark East Primary School, we want every child to succeed in English. For students who need extra support, we provide targeted, evidence-based intervention programs tailored to each child’s individual learning needs.
- MiniLit helps younger children (Grade 1 and 2) who need more support with early reading skills like hearing sounds, letter sounds, reading smoothly and understanding words.
- MacqLit supports older students (Grade 3 to 6) who need ongoing help with reading. It focuses on reading, spelling and understanding texts in small groups.
- Toe by Toe is an intensive one-on-one program for students who need extra help with decoding words and reading accurately, using a slow and steady approach.
- Bridge the Gap (Heggerty) helps students from Grade 2 upwards who need extra practice hearing and working with sounds in words to build strong reading skills.
These programs are run by trained staff members who regularly check how each child is doing to make sure they get the right support at the right time.
