Aligned with the Victorian Curriculum 2.0, our literacy programs are designed to empower students to become articulate and expressive communicators through a rich literature approach.  Literacy teaching is based around text studies featuring a diverse range of authors and text types. These texts serve as the foundation for learning in reading, vocabulary building, fluency and building knowledge. These texts also support our writing instruction, through explicit, sequenced instruction in writing, starting at the sentence level and progressing to more complex compositions.

Reading

At the heart of our approach to Reading is the ‘Big Six’, the fundamental components of literacy embedded into our daily teaching and learning programs.

Phonemic awareness - the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.

Phonics - understanding that letters represent the sounds of spoken language.

Vocabulary - the knowledge of words and their meaning to help us communicate effectively.

Fluency - the ability to read text accurately, quickly and with proper expression.

Comprehension - the ability to understand, interpret, and derive meaning from written text, transforming words into knowledge and insight.

Oral Language - developing the system of spoken communication that encompasses both speaking and listening. 

At Portarlington Primary School, students are supported to build their decoding skills through the explicit teaching of letter/sound correspondences and word parts such as syllables, prefixes and suffixes.  Students are provided with daily opportunities to read good-fit texts with support, and to build and consolidate skills at their individual point of need.  

Daily fluency practice is a key pillar to reading success at Portarlington Primary School.  Students at our school are engaged in daily fluency practice working in carefully paired groups.  These structured sessions provide students with repeated reading opportunities, targeted feedback, and positive peer interaction.  For emerging readers, fluency practice builds decoding automaticity and confidence, allowing them to shift their focus from word recognition to understanding the meaning of text.  The essential bridge between phonics and comprehension is deliberately reinforced across all year levels.

Through the mastery of essential skills and beyond, we nurture a love of literature to inspire curiosity, empathy and foster a life-long appreciation of diverse literary forms and genres.

Writing

Students at every level are guided to understand that writing is much more than merely putting words on a page, but about shaping ideas to inform, persuade and inspire.  Writing begins at the sentence level as students are explicitly taught how to craft sentences which are clear and grammatically correct.  As learning progresses to more complex compositions, students are guided to organise sentences into coherent paragraphs.  Students at Portarlington Primary School are systematically building writing skills that enhance their ability to express their ideas effectively, equipping them to be confident and proficient writers.

Included as a core component of our structured literacy block is daily handwriting which is explicitly taught every day to support students in developing fine motor skills, letter formation, and written expression.  Research shows that fluent, legible handwriting is closely linked to literacy development.  When students can write efficiently, they free up cognitive resources for higher-order tasks like spelling, sentence construction, and idea generation.  Strong handwriting skills also supports reading development by reinforcing letter recognition and orthographic knowledge.