Lifting Literacy

At Waipāhīhī-a-Tia, this approach to reading will not affect every student. Depending on the age and stage of students, the change will mostly affect those who are still learning to read, by building a new decodable text component into our pre-existing literacy programme. These books are sequenced in seven stages to teach children the 44 sounds of the English language and the principles of the alphabetic code. We will continue to focus on phonics and phonemic awareness to build the strongest foundations for reading and spelling success. We will also focus on building vocabulary and oral language skills to develop equally strong foundations for comprehension and writing. Those students who have already learnt the foundations of reading-  ie they are now reading to learn - will not use the decodable texts.