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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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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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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 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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PLD routinely revisits and reviews the existing research to ensure our programs continue to reflect current best practices. This blog revisits and extends the topic of fluency. An earlier blog on the topic can be found here.  Helping students become accurate and automatic readers is central to reading comprehension and confidence. Reading fluency is generally […]

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What are HFWs? High-frequency words (HFWs) are words that have been identified as commonly appearing in children’s literature. The majority of HFWs can be decoded once students have learned the grapheme correspondences within those words. These words are then repeatedly read until students are able to read them in flash. PLD refers to these as […]

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Clearing Up Terminology Teachers often encounter confusion regarding the term ‘sight words’. It’s crucial to clarify that sight words represent instructional outcomes, not instructional inputs. Words become ‘sight words’ only once students can automatically read them through the process of orthographic mapping. Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond humorously summarises this concept: ‘Every word wants to be […]

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One of the most common questions teachers ask is, “Which children are at risk of struggling with reading?” Identifying these risk factors early is not only useful for intervention but also for the implementation of preventative programs that support early literacy development. Research consistently shows that certain factors increase the likelihood of reading difficulties, and […]

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Letter-sound knowledge acquisition is one of the key elements driving early reading acquisition. For young learners, cracking the alphabet code can be challenging due to the arbitrary nature of letters and their sound correspondences. Mnemonics offers a bridge between familiar images and the letters, facilitating strong letter-sound relationships. Research Base Behind Mnemonics Mnemonics is a […]

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The ultimate goal for any teacher is to enable their students to express themselves through authentic writing. However, achieving this level of literacy independence requires a solid foundation in reading and writing skills. Phonic dictation is an essential component in this process.  Dictation serves as a bridge to independent writing whereby students are able to […]

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As with any teaching resource, there are different ways sound wall displays can be introduced, displayed and utilised.  As sound walls are a fairly new instructional tool, it is important to provide information on how to use them to their full potential. Click here if you would like to read more about sound walls and SSP, […]