10 Mar | By Mrs Juliet Redmond, Literacy Leader

Literacy Programmes at Carncot

A major focus of our literacy learning programmes at Carncot in 2019 and 2020 has been, and continues to be, based around learning about and applying current evidence-based research to the teaching of reading and writing. All teaching staff have been engaged in a supported professional development programme with Liz Kane.

We have been fortunate to employ the expertise of Liz Kane, from Liz Kane Literacy, who is an expert in this field and who is in high demand in Manawatu and New Zealand. Liz Kane works closely with Juliet Redmond, as our Literacy leader and all class teachers and our Learning Support teacher, to upskill teachers in phonological knowledge and awareness and apply this daily in their teaching. Each term, she provides further upskilling and observes class teachers in action to use "The Code" to systematically teach children how to read and write. At the junior level, and for some senior students, we have been fortunate to purchase staged decodable readers which ensure our literacy programme is integrated from reading into writing. We are starting to see a noticeable shift in the rate at which students from Year 1 can access texts and gain success in writing.

Ms Sinclair, as our Learning Support Teacher, is also attending a Multi-Sensory-Learning course in the April holidays which is aimed at assisting students who struggle in areas of literacy.

We are excited to hear further about the research through an upcoming visiting overseas specialist in this area, Dr Pam Kastner. Dr Kastner is a passionate advocate for the Science of Reading from the United States and is visiting Palmerston North on 20th March 2020 to present to us. A number of schools, along with Carncot, have prioritised this seminar on a Teacher Only Day. Her research and approach is fully aligned with the phonetic awareness approach we have adopted through Liz Kane. All our classroom and specialist teaching staff have this opportunity to be involved in this Professional Development presenting the latest research and how this translates into the practice of teaching children reading, writing and spelling.

For more information about Liz Kane, please see the link here from a recent interview on the AM Show.