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What does PLD recommend when catering for strong spellers and students achieving high scores in subsequent PLD Stages? PLD recommends that teachers avoid accelerating students through the Stages. Instead, we recommend that teachers provide challenging tasks linked to existing concepts. Exploring how words are built and related (word study/morphology) helps strengthen spelling, reading and vocabulary. […]

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While there is no single universally agreed-upon phonics sequence, effective systematic phonics programs share a similar, research-based progression that moves from simple initial code to advanced and complex code. The universal philosophy is to teach the most common, high-frequency letter-sound relationships first, and this enables children to read words quickly. The Standard Systematic Phonics Sequence […]

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Over the past semester, six improvements have been introduced to My SSP Online. Some may already be familiar if you’ve logged in over recent weeks, while others may be new to you. This blog post highlights each of these updates. Upgrade 1: A whole new design The portal has also been reorganised to make navigation […]

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Step 1: Registering and Setting up PLD Tracking Sheets Step 2: Teachers and Education Assistants to Complete Relevant Online Course (Minimum of Two Hours) Depending on the schools, this training may take place on the Term 3 pupil-free day or during staff meetings. The online courses provide a comprehensive overview of PLD’s implementation in primary […]

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To inspire and focus your teachers for the term ahead, be sure to forward them these short refresher clips. The clips provide concise, relevant, and actionable tips for effective PLD phonics implementation within the classroom. In these succinct videos, we also explain how to cater to the range in student ability by using screening and […]

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As a part of the 2023 WA Department of Education Phonics Initiative, WA schools will be required to complete an annual phonics assessment for Year 1 students from the start of 2023. The annual assessment will help teachers to identify students who require additional support to develop essential phonics skills.  The WA Department of Education […]

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The Year 1 Phonics Check aims to identify students who require targeted literacy support, and schools that require a stronger school-wide approach to structured synthetic phonics (SSP). For schools implementing PLD, a similar screening process has been occurring termly throughout Foundation and into Year 1. The Phonics Check automatically categorises students’ decoding ability into three […]

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As the Science of Reading takes its rightful place in Australian classrooms, many traditional literacy practices are being scrutinised. The “Look, Cover, Say, Write, Check” (LCSWC) method is often at the top of the list for potential removal. Many literacy consultants and school leaders now advise teachers to abandon the technique entirely. They argue it […]

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Are you confident with your Term 2 teaching programs and the PLD teaching sequence? Do you know exactly what PLD programs to teach and when to implement the PLD teaching sequence? In these 7 to 10-minute videos, Diana Rigg guides teachers through the most important areas to focus on during Term 2, PLD scope and sequence and how […]

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Step 1: Registering and Setting up PLD Tracking Sheets Step 2: Teachers and Education Assistants to Complete Relevant Online Course (Minimum of Two Hours) Depending on the school, this training may take place on the Term 2 pupil-free day or during staff meetings. The online courses provide a comprehensive overview of PLD’s implementation in primary […]

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PLD is designed to align with the Australian Curriculum. Queensland, like all other states and territories, uses the Australian Curriculum as the foundation for its own teaching and learning guidance. This means that a program aligning with the Australian Curriculum will, by design, have strong alignment with Queensland’s requirements too. The Literacy Hub is not […]

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Research into brain activity has shown a bidirectional connection between visual and phonological areas of the brain. This means that children should be systematically taught how letters map to speech sounds and also the speech sounds to print. These skills support each other, creating a reciprocal relationship. Source of the definitions: Jennifer Buckingham (2020),  Five […]

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The Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) 8th Edition is a norm-referenced assessment used to assess reading skills from the beginning of schooling through the end of eighth grade. DIBELS is also a criterion-referenced assessment (meaning it measures a student’s performance against a fixed set of predetermined standards or benchmarks.) DIBELS can be […]

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Many literacy organisations recommend between 10 and 20 minutes of reading per day, largely due to the exposure of words this brings to a student. However, citations linked to these recommendations are typically not peer reviewed studies. Most of the existing recommendations seem to be based upon an article from 1988 in which the researchers […]

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In the current Australian educational landscape, “Explicit Instruction” has become more than just a buzzword; it is the gold standard for literacy success. With the rollout of the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 and state-specific mandates principals and teachers are working harder than ever to align their classrooms with the Science of Reading (SoR). However, a […]

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To inspire and focus teachers for the term ahead, be sure to view and forward these short refresher clips. The clips provide concise, relevant, and actionable tips for effective PLD teaching sequence implementation within the classroom. In these succinct videos, we also explain how to cater to the range in student ability by using screening […]

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Step 1: Register for & set up the PLD Tracking Sheets. Step 2: Teachers and Education Assistants need to view at least two hours of the relevant online course. Depending on the school, this training may take place on a pupil-free day or during staff meetings. The online courses provide a comprehensive overview of PLD’s […]

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In today’s digital-first classrooms, finding the right tools to support foundational literacy can feel like a daunting task. With over 9,000 apps on the market claiming to teach children how to read, how do you distinguish between a high-quality educational tool and a “gamified” distraction? A world-first, systematic study recently published in the Early Childhood […]

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Step 1: Registering and Setting up PLD Tracking Sheets Step 2: Teachers and Education Assistants to Complete Relevant Online Course (Minimum of Two Hours) Depending on the school, this training may take place on the Term 4 pupil-free day or during staff meetings. The online courses provide a comprehensive overview of PLD’s implementation in primary […]

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Step 1: Registering and Setting Up PLD Tracking Sheets Step 2: The participating classes will need to administer screening in the final week(s) of the school year and hand this information over to next year’s teachers to use when they are viewing the online courses. Early Years Within the Early Years Screening & Tracking Manual, […]