How do composite classes work when implementing Little Learners Love Literacy®? This is a question we are frequently asked; unfortunately, the answer isn’t simple. Composite classes do not work well for explicit whole class teaching of a systematic scope and sequence. Where possible, opt for straight grades in the Foundation to Year 2 area of the school.
If there is more than one composite class in a school, we suggest teachers working together, with each teacher teaching students from a single year level during literacy instruction. Children learn at a quicker rate if they are taught systematically and explicitly using synthetic phonics and a structured literacy approach.
If you are the teacher of the only composite class at your year level, start each lesson with the earliest scope and sequence. Explicit instruction for some and revision for others provides lots of opportunities to check for understanding of all students.
Students working at the earliest scope and sequence can then practise the content being taught. This could be a handwriting activity, Read, Write and Draw, or Sound and Write. An Education Support staff member could run a Let’s spell or Let’s Write activity with these students.
You can then explicitly teaches the students from the next level scope and sequence.
Little Learners Love Literacy® does not advocate streaming of students. By streaming, we mean assessing students using the Little Learners Assessment suite and flexibly arranging classes, such as Year 1 students working with the Foundation program and vice versa.
Instead, we strongly recommend a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) to identify struggling students early and intervene quickly. MTSS is designed to help schools identify struggling students early and intervene quickly through tier 2, targeted small group intervention and tier 3, intensive individual instruction.
The Little Learners Love Literacy® Approach
In summary, systematic synthetic phonics is best taught following the Little Learners Love Literacy® explicit teaching routine in straight grades from Foundation to Year 2 following this model:
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