Compass

The reporting transition to COMPASS is now complete. Often changes to system process, can create feelings of stress and frustration as the familiar becomes the unfamiliar for a period of time until one becomes accustomed to the change. Albeit with a few technical issues from the system level at COMPASS, parents now have access to view their child’s current and past academic reports through the Parent Portal. Parents also have the option of printing reports if or when required. The transition to digital reporting, booking interviews and adding attendance notes has been met with a sense of positivity within the school community. The administration staff is to be acknowledged for their work in assisting parents through the process of logging in and navigating the portal. Thank you to parents for your patience and support throughout this transition period.

Letters and Sounds

It has been a very busy term for all the students in relation to reading and word knowledge taught through letters and sounds.

Kindergarten are actively learning about single sounds and now beginning to learn about consonant digraphs and syllable types. Year 1 have been engaged in understanding how some graphemes can have alternative pronunciations and spellings and are exploring further syllable types. Whilst Year 2 - 6 are learning about the morphology of words by exploring suffixes, base words and root words through spelling.

As I go into the classrooms each day to support, demonstrate and co-teach, I am pleased to  observe students applying the skills, knowledge and understanding of how words and language operate when reading and writing. Having this knowledge is a crucial component in learning how to read so that eventually we can read to learn.

Below is a glossary of terms you may hear your child speaking about related to their reading and writing:

Phonics: Knowledge and skills of segmenting and blending, knowledge of the alphabetic code and an understanding of the principles underpinning the way the code is used in reading and spelling.

Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest unit of spoken sound in a word. For example the word boat has 3 phoneme b / oa / t

Grapheme: The symbolic representation of a phoneme, that is a letter or group of letters that make that one sound. For example the phoneme ‘a’ can be represented by the following graphemes: ‘a’ in apron, ‘ai’ in rain, ‘ay’ in play, ‘a-e’ in lake, ‘eigh’ in sleigh, ‘ey’ in obey, ‘ei’ in veil

Syllable: A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or part of a word.

Closed Syllable: A syllable that ends with a consonant. The vowel has a short vowel sound as in the word ‘bat’.

Open Syllable: A syllable that ends with a vowel. The vowel has a long vowel sound, as in the word ‘go’.

Silent e Syllable: A syllable in which the final e is silent and makes the next vowel before it long, as in the word ‘ride’.

Vowel Team Syllable: A syllable type in which 2 vowels next to each other make 1 vowel sound, as in the word ‘read’

Diphthong Syllable: A syllable type in which 2 vowels next to each other combine to make 1 new sound, as in the word ‘mouth’

Consonant le Syllable: A syllable type found in words like ‘handle’, ‘table’ and ‘middle’

R-control Syllable: A syllable type where 1 or 2 vowels are directly followed by the letter r. The r controls the vowel/s and changes its sound, as in words like ‘car’, ‘turn’, ‘stir’, ‘flower’, ‘born’, ‘bear’, ‘door’, ‘chair’, ‘dare’

Sheereen Brunetta
Assistant Principal