Parent Resources

Promoting Literacy Development or PLD is an evidence-based Australian literacy program designed to develop your child’s reading and writing skills. 

Phonics instruction helps your child understand the relationship between letters and sounds, crucial for reading and spelling development. By mastering phonics, children can read and spell words independently.

Synthetic phonics focuses on sounding out unknown words. For example., ‘net’ is broken up into its sounds /n/ /e/ /t/ and then read as a whole word  /net/. In contrast, levelled reading books encourage children to guess words from context or pictures, placing less emphasis on reading the words on the page.

Decodable books are tailored to your child’s current phonics knowledge, enabling them to apply what they have learned and build confidence in reading. These books progress in complexity as your child’s phonics knowledge expands. Repeated practice of decodable reading material will eventually lead to fast automatic reading. 

Before reading, review the book’s sounds with your child. Practise reading words and heart words listed in the book. While reading, encourage your child to track under the text and support them through difficult words using the ‘tips to help early readers’ section in the front of the book. 

If your child is stuck, encourage them to break down the word into its sounds. If they are still struggling demonstrate the sounds or stretch out the word so they can practise blending the word together.

It’s normal for early readers to sound out each word even if the word is repeated multiple times. Over time, with practice, they will start recognising words more quickly and fluently.

Engage in shared book reading with children’s picture books to foster language development and enhance their listening comprehension. Repeated readings of the same book, coupled with discussion and comprehension questions can deepen understanding and enjoyment around book reading. 

Ask your school to provide you with the Comprehension Questions resource for your child to be provided with a list of children’s books and their accompanying comprehension questions.