Why does Flying Start to Literacy have paired books?

Paired books enable greater comprehension of the topic.

 Flying Start to Literacy uses paired books to enable children to explore the same

key concept in a fiction and a nonfiction book. This enables children to think about

the topic from different perspectives, and facilitates a much deeper understanding

of each topic.

It also supports students in making a more ready link between their

experiences and the world they are reading about.

Paired books support a more thorough grasp of new vocabulary.

For new vocabulary to be recognised by sight confidently, accurately and fluently it

needs to be read a large number of times. Reading the same words in different sentence

structures enables children to develop automatic recall of new vocabulary.

It also makes it more likely that the children will go on to use this new vocabulary in discussion,

and when they write.

Paired books support children’s writing.

As children read each book in the pair, they are presented with different treatments

of the same topic. These models of writing enable children to develop a good

understanding of how different texts work, and promotes diversity in their writing.

How have the topics in Flying Start to Literacy
been selected?

Topics addressed in Flying Start to Literacy have been carefully planned to reflect

both children’s interests, and the curriculum related to the early years of schooling

in the areas of Science, Social Education, Health and Technology.

This enables children to learn meaningful information about the world

as they are learning to read.

Why stage the introduction of the phonic challenges?

The relationships between sounds and letters are very complex in English spelling.

For example the letters ch represents different sounds in each of these words

(chair, chef, choir).

Research shows that to support children as they learn about how phonics works

in English, it is helpful to introduce new information about phonics in small steps

or stages, so that children are not overwhelmed or confused.

Flying Start to Literacy stages the introduction of new phonic challenges

thoughout the program to match children’s developing understanding of phonics.

This staged introduction of phonics begins with single letter sound matches

(e.g. /a / as in cat) and progresses through double letters and digraphs (/e /as in feet),

common consonant and vowel representation (e.g. /wh/ as in wheel, /o/ as in boat),

and ends with less common representations of sounds in words (e.g. /o/as in cough).

In this way young readers are supported, and should be able to tackle unknown words

using the phonic understandings that they have developed.

What do the Stages mean?

Flying Start to Literacy is organised into six developmental Stages.

The books in each of the Stages have 24 books (12 pairs) with their

own distinctive features.

Each Stage introduces new vocabulary, (both key and high frequency words) and

phonic challenges, and consolidates the vocabulary and phonic challenges of

preceding Stages.

As well, each of the six development Stages is carefully graded into levels of

increasing challenge. This provides a scaffold for students’ reading development.

What do the levels within each Stage represent?

Within each of the six developmental Stages, levels represent small increments in

reading challenge. This is designed to support reading development as students meet

new reading challenges.

To ensure that each book is accurately levelled, careful and extensive in-classroom

trailling of each book has been undertaken. The levels are aligned with Reading Recovery levels.

What vocabulary does Flying Start to Literacy introduce?

Flying Start to Literacy builds children’s vocabulary in two main areas:

• High Frequency words

• Key vocabulary

High frequency words

Flying Start to Literacy focuses on developing children’s ability to automatically recognise

and use high frequency words.

These are words such as I, and, is, and the, that occur with high regularity in reading and writing.

The Flying Start to Literacy high frequency words are based on a comprehensive analysis of Clay, Fry, Oxford, Elley and Dolch.

The reading lists from Elley and Fry, along with the Oxford and Elley word list for writing, and Dolch’s list of basic sight words have been consulted.

Key vocabulary

Key vocabulary consist of words related to topics. Initially this vocabulary focuses on everyday words that form part of children’s spoken vocabulary.

Vocabulary Starter cards support children as they become familiar with these words.

The Flying Start to Literacy Vocabulary Starters open out to become very versatile wall freizes.

Topics covered include families, mini beasts, farm and zoo animals. These sets of words

provide the basis for Stage One books.

From Stage Two onwards, new key vocabulary related to each topic is introduced

(for example: the book Spiders uses spider, web, silk, legs, insects).

How are new words introduced?

High Frequency Words are recognised by sight.

The Key Vocabulary words are topic words and are used frequently, so they can be

recognised quickly by sight.

In addition, other new words, which are phonetically regular, are introduced as

children develop reading strategies. These phonetically regular words can be

decoded using the phonic skills related to the stage they are reading.

.

Why are there fiction and non-fiction texts
in each pair?

Approaching a topic from both a fiction and non-fiction point of view enables

the topic to be explored from different points of view.

It invites young readers to go beyond the facts to understand the social context

of each topic.

It also enables students to combine the intellectual and emotional aspects of each topic,

which enriches the children’s understanding of the world, and promotes a broad-based

and thoughtful approach to learning about the world.