CONTENT
Take a look at our expertly designed content.
It may look simple on the surface, but the teaching method behind each task is expertly designed to promote literacy.
Introduction
Our worksheets are expertly designed by teachers for teachers and follow a progressive and systematic design that progresses children's literacy skills. Here is a sample and explanation of some of the content from our K2 level.
Learning Sounds
We use short, simple mnemonics to help children remember the shape of the letter and the associated sound. For example, here, we use
​
"Around the elephant and swing down the trunk"
We use a variety of picture cards with the target sound to help children hear and say the sound within words, which further deepens their grasp of the sound in both speaking and listening terms.
Learning Vocabulary
We teach children vacab via picture cards.
In addition, children learn to identify sounds within words which helps to promote proper pronunciation.
Matching activity in the worksheets helps children to remember the vocab.
Written words are presented with dot dot dash signs beneath them. These signs help children identify whether the sound is a phoneme (single sound) or a di/trigraph (a grapheme containing 2 or 3 letters to make a sound).
​
If applicable, when reading the word, children will always be taught to read with the phonics reading skill, i.e. they will be asked to sound out the word. Children use the combination of recognising some of the sounds together with the picture to help them read the word. This increases children's confidence as they begin to read.
Dolch Sight Words
We teach children age-appropriate sight words, following the Dolch sight word list, popularised by Dr Seuss' A Cat in a Hat.
​
The list contains 220 "service words" that Dolch thought should be easily recognized in order to achieve reading fluency in the English language. According to Dolch,
"Between 50% and 75% of all words used in schoolbooks, library books, newspapers, and magazines are a part of the Dolch basic sight word vocabulary."
The purpose of this section is to promote reading fluency. Key vocabulary (i.e. robot and bear) and the target sight words (i.e. said, for, look) are introduced via picture cards before reading the text. This increases children's reading success rate come reading time.
Sight words are colour coded in red. These visual clues quickly tell children that the word is one of the particular words introduced earlier, which aids children in reading the sentence.
​
A repetitive sentence pattern is used as scaffolding that helps children read the text and promote fluency and thus confidence in reading.
Comprehension
Comprehension involving speaking and listening is the core focus of this section.
Children are asked the question, and through soliciting and modelling, children answer the question orally in complete sentences.
​
We use repetition to develop oral fluency. Each time a child repeats the complete sentence orally, the child improves upon the pronunciation of the words and gains oral fluency, which develops confidence in speaking in English. Simply put, the more you speak, the better you get!
Decoding
This section focuses on the skill of reading. Children start with oral blending and transition to blending. Oral blending involves hearing phonemes and merging them together to make a word. Children need to develop this skill before they can blend written words. Blending consists of looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondence (the ability to match phonemes with graphemes, or in other words, the ability to match sounds with the written letters) to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word. This is the basis of reading.
​
The teacher controls the blending process's speed, intonation, and stress to create a rhythm that carries the child along in the blending process. This rhythm encourages the child to let the sounds out to read the word fluently. Again, we use repetition to improve pronunciation and promote fluency and confidence.
Encoding
This section focuses on the skill of spelling. Children start with oral segmenting and transition to segmenting. Oral segmenting is the act of hearing a whole word and then splitting it up into the phonemes that make it. Children need to develop this skill before segmenting words to spell them. Segmenting involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes that make it, using knowledge of GPCs to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the correct order. This is the basis of spelling.
​
We teach children to use the phonics spelling skill, known as fingerspelling. To fingerspell the word "mud", the child would first say the word mud numerous times to ensure proper pronunciation. Then the child would orally segment the word onto their fingers by first holding a closed fist, then flipping the thumb up while saying "mmm", then flipping the index finger up while saying "uh" then the middle finger while saying "duh". Then finally, the child will segment the word on paper by writing the letters "mud".