“Independent reading, both at school and at home, builds successful readers. What’s more, the research shows that giving our students a say in what they read is the key. And from our experience, we also know frequent reading leads to becoming a proficient reader, which helps a child thrive personally and academically.” Scholastic Kids & Family Reading Report TM: Fifth Edition

Successful independent reading is the end result of a well-executed balanced literacy program. It allows students the chance to practise the strategies they’ve learned through instructional practices such as; guided reading, shared reading, and teacher ‘read alouds’. Students are taught how to choose books that they can read and books that they want to read, these are called Just Right books. With appropriate just right materials, students build the skills they need to read on their own and this is why every classroom at Eltham Primary School has its own classroom library with an ever increasing range of books for the students to choose from.

Children write best about the things that are important to them and what they are interested in. It is writing that comes from what they know and what they have experienced.

At Eltham Primary School we believe that children must be given ‘the luxury of time’ to become deeply invested in their writing, and draft, revise and publish their written pieces at a pace that honours and recognises the creative process.

The ideal writing workshop includes ten minutes of explicit instruction, at least half an hour of writing time (conferences and small group instruction), ending with 5–10 minutes of sharing.

“Children can attain real understanding about spelling and can apply what they have learned if they are guided in a process of inquiry and discovery.” Diane Snowball, Spelling K-8

At Eltham Primary School we teach spelling through an inquiry approach so that our students can investigate words for themselves and become word detectives to discover how words work (with patterns, generalisations and exceptions) in both reading and writing.