Reading at Ripley Central State School
At Ripley Central State School, we recognise that every student needs explicit teaching of the knowledge, skills and strategies required to access the curriculum, understand texts and make meaning from what they read. Reading is essential for learning across every area of the Australian Curriculum and for success both at school and beyond.
The Queensland Reading Position Statement provides guidance for schools to support students to become skilled, confident readers. It recognises that successful reading involves two equally important areas:
- Word Recognition - accurately and fluently reading words.
- Language Comprehension - understanding and making meaning from what is read.
Both areas must be explicitly taught and developed together. Students need opportunities to learn how words work while building their vocabulary, background knowledge, language skills, reasoning and understanding of texts.
Our commitment at Ripley Central
At Ripley Central, every teacher is a teacher of reading. Reading is not only taught in English; it is essential to learning across the Australian Curriculum.
We are committed to a consistent, evidence-informed approach where students receive explicit teaching in:
- phonology, phonics, spelling and orthography (learning sounds, letters and spelling patterns)
- morphology and word structure (learning how words are built and what their parts mean)
- vocabulary and background knowledge (learning new words and building knowledge about the world)
- language structures and verbal reasoning (understanding and using language to explain and think about ideas)
- reading comprehension (understanding and making meaning from what is read)
Teachers explicitly teach students how to read and understand the different types of texts they encounter across the curriculum, supporting them to access increasingly complex texts independently.
How we make this happen
We are building a shared approach to reading through:
- consistent whole-school reading practices and instructional routines
- explicit teaching of word reading and language comprehension
- high-quality literacy blocks where students learn, practise and apply reading skills
- shared and dialogic reading to build knowledge, vocabulary and understanding
- professional learning, instructional coaching and collaboration for teachers and teacher aides
- the use of student achievement data to monitor progress and inform responsive teaching.
Our goal is to develop confident, capable and motivated readers who can read, understand, think critically about and respond to texts across the curriculum and beyond the classroom.
At Ripley Central, reading is a shared responsibility and a shared commitment. Together, we are building the knowledge, skills and confidence every student needs to access the curriculum, make meaning from text, learn, succeed and flourish.