SUPPORT PROGRAMS
Levelled Literacy Intervention
Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI) is a short term, small group literacy program designed to supplement classroom reading and writing. This program targets students from Grade 2-6 who are identified by the school as requiring additional support in literacy. At St Mary’s, students are withdrawn from the classroom for four sessions per week.
The program provides a combination of reading, writing and phonic/word study activities with an emphasis on developing comprehension skills. Students read a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts. Through explicit teaching, students develop skills to take action when:
Thinking within the text i.e. solving words, monitoring and self-correcting and building fluency.
Thinking beyond the text i.e. predicting, inferring and making connections.
Thinking about the text i.e. thinking critically and exploring the author’s purpose.Group discussion is an integral component of LLI lessons to encourage students to form opinions and clarify their ideas.
Mathematics Intervention
St Mary's has a Number Intervention program run by a specialist Mathematics teacher to support students who require additional support in their learning. Number Intervention is a researched based Intervention with the prime goal of accelerating Arithmetical learning in the first five years of schooling. The Intervention teacher is trained by Dr Bob Wright and the CEO supports the program. Mathematics data from classroom teachers is used to identify those students who are performing in the lowest bands of achievement.
Students who are selected are taught individually, as pairs or trios. The Number Intervention teacher undertakes two teaching cycles over the course of the year. In first semester students from levels three or four are the focus and in the second semester the focus is on students in levels one or two. Students attend sessions four days a week. Each session is videoed. This creates an opportunity to review learning, share with parents and staff as part of each student’s ‘Learning Ladder.’ Parents are invited to observe their children during a session and encouraged to practise the same strategies at home. The classroom teacher is given feedback to enable these students to be able to work independently in the classroom. We aim to build student confidence and help students attain success in Mathematics.