Language Arts with Lyn Stone
COURSE INFORMATION
We hope you will have a wonderful time and learn a lot about continuing to teach high quality literacy lessons after phonemic awareness and phonics are all taken care of.
By the end of the course you will have:
- a greater understanding of how we learn
- a clear picture of the Simple View of Reading
- a clear picture of the Simple View of Writing
- a working understanding of structured literacy
- tools to teach morphology
- tools to teach parts of speech
- tools to teach fluent, high quality writing
NOTATION GUIDE
Throughout the course, International Phonetic Alphabet symbols have been used between slanted brackets to indicate phonemes.
Consonants
Vowels
/p/ (pig) /b/ (big)
/t/ (ten) /d/ (den)
/k/ (kill) /g/ (gill)
/f/ (fan) /v/ (van)
/θ/ (thin) /ð/ (that)
/s/ (sip) /z/ (zip)
/ʃ/ (ship) /ʒ/ (vision)
/t͡ʃ/ (chill) /d͡ʒ/ (Jill)
/m/ (map)
/n/ (nap)
/ŋ/ (sing)
/l/ (light)
/r/ (right)
/w/ (wit)
/h/ (hit)
/ʍ/ (whip)
/j/ (yes)
/ɒ/ (got)
/ɔ:/ (law)
/ɜ:/ (her)
/ʊ:/ (boot)
/ʊ/ (put)
/e/ (get)
/ɪ/ (sit)
/i:/ (tree)
/æ/ (bat)
/ʌ/ (gum)
/a:/ (bar)
/ei/ (day)
/ju:/ (due)
/aɪ/ (die)
/əʊ/ (goat)
/ɔɪ/ (boy)
/aʊ/ (cow)
Letter names are indicated by symbols placed in side single guillemets: <a> to <z>.
Books
Lyn has written three books on the subject of literacy and language, supported by online courses too. The links below will take you to each book.
I am a Leader of Learning at a Catholic R-6 school in the outer northern suburbs of Adelaide. I have been in this role for 5 years. Our school has been on a slow journey toward embracing SOR. Initially, we started with Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar. While this was a good starting point we felt it has its limitations. Our EY teachers were reluctant to embrace Decodable Readers. Over the past 3 year though we have really managed to get our teachers on board through work with a consultant, Kay Bosworth and the adoption of a Systematic Phonics Program. We have seen great growth. Being from an upper primary background I would like to increase my knowledge. I currently run groups of students involved in one of the Macquarie Uni programs which has taught me a lot. But I still have much to learn. I am really looking forward to participating in this course.
Hi All,
I am the Principal at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Ballarat.
Our teaching team will be doing this together as after school professional learning throughout Terms 1 and 2.
We are at the beginning stages of a shift from balanced to structured literacy. We started Sounds Write in 2019 and are now looking further at Instructional Reading Routines that support a structured literacy approach. This year we have given away F and P and started DIBELS. Our Home Reading Program is under construction as is our Instructional Model and Assessment Schedule.
As well as doing Language Arts we are also working with Emina McLean in a critical friend capacity to assist us in guiding our new learning.
I’m looking forward to new learning and implementation as we work through the modules.
Kate
Really great to have you and the team on board, Kate. Doubly glad that Emina is providing guidance too. You cannot go wrong with that!
Hi everyone,
I am one half of a Year 5/6 teacher team as well as Wellbeing Leader at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Ballarat.
Our teaching staff will be doing this together as after school professional learning throughout Terms 1 and 2.
We started Sounds Write in 2019 and are now looking further at Instructional Reading Routines that support a structured literacy approach. We have just dived into DIBELs at the beginning of the year. As well as doing Language Arts we are also working with Emina McLean in a critical friend capacity to assist us in guiding our new learning. I’m always keen to learn something new to support my students to reach for the stars.
Leah
Looking forward to working alongside you all as you make your way through the course. Have you spotted Emina’s video yet? Haha!
Hello!
I am a Foundation teacher at Mount Pleasant Primary School, Ballarat. As a team we will be doing this course together, which I love because it will create immediate discussion and give us opportunities to bounce off of each other. I began my teaching career nearly 3 years ago; our school started on the Sounds Write journey 2 years ago and I have found the consistency and predictability of the program gives myself and my students confidence. As a teaching community we dived deep into our numeracy in 2021 and I feel as though we are now more equipped to lift our numeracy data and provide engaging learning experiences for our students. Diving deep into literacy this year is exciting and I am looking forward to deepening my understandings and sharing this learning journey with our team.
Lovely to have you here, Anna. It’s a very exciting time for your school. Lucky kids!
Hi Everyone! I am very fortunate to teach part time in the Year 5/6 team at Mount Pleasant Primary School. It’s an wonderful opportunity to take part in this course alongside my incredible colleagues. My goal is to continue to develop my understandings of SOR and dive deeper into structured literacy. Particularly, what this looks like in the year 5/6 classroom. I completed Sounds Write training last year, which was a truly fabulous experience. I no doubt have a lot to learn, however I am very eager to participate in the course. Thank you for having me. Sarah
Thank you for being here, Sarah. I am indeed looking forward to interacting with the Mount Pleasant staff as they progress through the course!
Hi everyone!
My name is Amy and I am a grade 5/6 teacher at Mount Pleasant Primary School, Ballarat. I am very much looking forward to taking part in this professional learning, especially as I have been out of the classroom for a little while on maternity leave. I am hoping to further develop my understanding of structured literacy and enhance my teaching to benefit the students in my class.
Great to have you here, Amy!
Hello everybody! I am co-teaching grade 5/6 (3-days per week). I consider my ‘literacy learning’ journey a bit patchy as English was not the primary language spoken at home in my formative & primary school years. However, I have always been interested in linguistics and am fascinated by the science of reading. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to learn more about structured literacy and how this can benefit our students.
Welcome, Dave! What was your primary language spoken at home?
Hi All,
My name is Suzie Drew and I am one of the Grade 1/2 teachers at Mount Pleasant Primary School. This year is my first year teaching at Mount Pleasant Primary school and third year teaching Grade 1/2. I am looking forward to learning more about a structured literacy approach while moving away from balanced literacy practices. I am currently enrolled in the Sounds Write course and am looking forward to expanding my professional knowledge on teaching reading and writing further.
Great to have you here, Suzie. Don’t believe everything you hear about split digraphs and silent letters in Sounds Write! 😉 Other than that, enjoy the courses!
Hi everyone!
My name is Kayla and I am the grade 3/4 teacher at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Ballarat. I am a first year graduate and I am so excited to participate in this course to learn more about structured literacy and how it will benefit my students.
So happy to have you all on board, Kayla!
Commenced Module 1 today as a team and have completed up to Orthographic mapping. Working as a team allows great discussion on each section. Reflecting on our students as well as our own learning preferences.
With CLT it was refreshing to see scope and sequence outperform non systematic approaches and maybe as a school we need to reflect on our Writing instruction to ensure we are both horizontally and vertically aligned.
Well put, Michelle! Writing is so complex a skill to master that it benefits hugely from an explicit approach!
Excited to be here! I am the Learning Support Coordinator at St Mary’s Primary School Northampton. I provide support to staff and students in the areas of T2 and T3 intervention. I am looking to gain a more rounded understanding of literacy and feel that this course will give me a wealth of knowledge that I can take with me into the classroom. Another part of my role is to develop our approach to RTI, this course looks like it will provide me with great support in this area. I can’t wait to get started.
Great to have you here, Aimee, and apologies for not responding sooner! I’ve been on tour and am now back and dedicating my Saturday to course moderation!
I am a 3/4 class teacher in Altona.
Hello Sally,
How nice to have you here. I look forward to interacting with you as you progress through the course!
Lyn
Hi! My name is Angie, I am the AP Curriculum and Instruction at Bathurst PS in NSW. 🙂
Terrific to see you here, Angie. Hope I can visit one day too! 😉
Hi, my name is Zoe Vagg. I am a Learning Enhancement teacher in the 5/6 space of our school, St Mary MacKillop Bannockburn (just outside Geelong). I am looking forward to learning more about structured literacy. We are beginning to change the structure of our literacy block to reflect an approach more inline with SOR. We have also started to assess using Dibels this year. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge whilst possibly drawing on others experiences, especially in the area of intervention.
Great to have you here, Zoe. Will you be coming to Sharing Best Practice in Geelong next month?
Yes, I will!
I believe the IPA symbol for “right” is /ɹaɪt/
Well no, Teslin, not really. There is no “IPA symbol” for a spoken word; only spoken sounds. So you can use those symbols to transcribe a possible pronunciation of a word, but the IPA itself doesn’t judge. Also, there are variants of the rhotic consonant you used in your transcription.
From Wikipedia: “In broad transcription rhotics are usually symbolised as /r/ unless there are two or more types of rhotic in the same language; for example, most Australian Aboriginal languages, which contrast approximant [ɻ] and trill [r], use the symbols r and rr respectively. The IPA has a full set of different symbols which can be used whenever more phonetic precision is required: an r rotated 180° [ɹ] for the alveolar approximant, a small capital R [ʀ] for the uvular trill, and a flipped small capital R [ʁ] for the voiced uvular fricative or approximant.”
Thanks a ton for the information. I would really appreciate if you could provide word examples for each- r rotated 180° [ɹ] for the alveolar approximant, a small capital R [ʀ] for the uvular trill, and a flipped small capital R [ʁ] for the voiced uvular fricative or approximant, if possible. Examples help me understand the information much better.
You’re missing the point, Teslin. It’s not word examples you need. Some people will use those allophones and some won’t in words containing the letter. If you want to look into it further, I suggest listening to different accents of English. It is beyond the scope of my work to provide those accents but the information is readily available online.
Hello! I am Teslin Joseph, Indian residing in UAE. I am homeschooling/unschooling parent of an emerging AAC user, a creative complex communicator and a gestalt language processor. I am passionate about teaching. I have worked as a primary classroom teacher. I have also worked as a private tutor, part-time instructor for teaching Introduction to Philosophy in the American University in the Emirates, and as a part-time English trainer in the Zabeel International Institute of Management and Technology Institute. Presently, I homeschool/unschool my son. I keep researching different literacy programs and try to adopt and implement the good practices. At present, I am working on and trying to find ways to bridge the gap between the AAC world and the Structured Word Inquiry approach combined with Structured Literacy, Phono-graphix method and Comprehensive literacy for all approach.
Welcome, Teslin! I’ve seen some of your posts on Facebook about your progress with your child and I’ve found it very interesting. I do hope you enjoy the course!
Hi I am a 3-4 Teacher who was lead Literacy teacher for four years I have stepped back from this role this year. I trained as a speld tutor and then got very involved in Structure literacy and The Code. I interest now is how to bring the students writing levels up to match their reading levels.
Welcome Cathy! It’s a tough job. When all things are considered, reading is the relatively easy part. Writing, as you will no doubt agree, takes quite a lot, both on the part of the teacher and the student! Good luck!
Hi everyone,
I am currently a MS English, humanities and health teacher at Ballarat Grammar. I am invested in ensuring all learners in my classes can progress. Although I already use scaffolds and model writing, I am excited about learning to incorporate tools in my lessons to better support the young people I teach.
I am about to start Sounds Write training as well.
Ultimately, I think secondary education sometimes assumes that learners are already experts and I know this often is not the case. I am hopeful that the evidence based, explicit teaching knowledge in this course will help close the gap for learners who are struggling.
Hi, my name is Sandy Velez. I’m teaching Prep -2 in a small rural school in Queensland. I started my SOR journey about 3 -4 years ago mainly in the areas of phonics, spelling and reading. I’ve seen children make great progress in these areas but would like to know the next steps to continue their journey, especially improving their writing. I’m on a steep learning curve but loving the results that the children have achieved – so encouraging.
Hello,
My name is Mitzi Sinclair. I am a reading specialist in a rural school in NH, USA. I work with students k-8.
Welcome, Mitzi. I hope you and your colleagues enjoy the content!
Hi, I am a teacher librarian of a primary public school on the South Coast of NSW. I am passionate about getting books into the hands of students and developing a lifelong love of reading. I would like to see more teachers encouraging reading for pleasure by demonstrating it in practice themselves.
I am looking forward to this professional development to enhance my teaching of high quality literacy lessons.
Good to see you here, Emily. Yes, demonstrating a love of reading is important!
Hi Everyone, I’m a Learning Support Teachers (K-2) with 5 years of Classroom Teaching experience. Our teaching team will be doing this together as a school professional learning throughout Term 3.
So excited to see you all here!
I am the principal of a NSW Department of Education school and we have strong literacy programs in place. We are always looking to improve our knowledge and practice to ensure that we are always at the forefront of teaching and learning. My teaching staff have all signed up to complete this course in PL time and also in their own time. We look forward to learning more to support our students.
Very happy to have you all aboard!
I am a primary school principal and very excited by the work of Lyn and colleagues. The impact on student learning and engagement is great.