Our Whole-School Approach to Reading: The Big 6

At Leopold Primary School the Big 6 of Reading forms the foundation of our evidence-based approach to teaching English. The Big 6 incorporates—oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension—as these are key components identified by research as essential for successful reading development.

By explicitly teaching each of these elements across all year levels, we ensure a consistent and structured approach that supports every student. This ensures our learners build the strong, foundational skills needed to become confident, fluent, and capable readers.

Phonological Awareness at Our School (P–2)

Our school uses the Heggerty Phonological Awareness program daily in Foundation to Year 2 to strengthen early reading skills. The short, structured lessons focus on listening to and working with sounds in spoken words—such as rhyming, syllables, and identifying beginning and ending sounds.

These skills are essential for learning to read and spell. Heggerty supports all students to build strong oral language foundations that lead into confident phonics and literacy development.

Phonics Instruction at Our School (P–2)

Leopold Primary School has introduced the Phonics Plus program—developed by the Department of Education—as part of our commitment to continuously strengthen early literacy. This new resource builds on our already strong, phonics approach in Prep to Year 2.

Phonics Plus is a systematic synthetic phonics program that explicitly teaches the relationships between sounds and letters in a clear, structured sequence. It provides daily lessons that support students to develop essential decoding, spelling, and word recognition skills. The program is aligned with the Victorian Curriculum and reflects current research on how children learn to read.

Vocabulary Development (P-6)

Vocabulary is a vital component of the Big 6 of Reading and a key focus in our English program. A strong vocabulary helps students make sense of what they read, express themselves clearly, and build knowledge across all learning areas.

At Leopold Primary, we explicitly teach vocabulary through rich texts, classroom discussion, and targeted explicit instruction. Students are supported to learn new words, understand their meanings, and use them confidently in speaking and writing. Building vocabulary is essential for improving comprehension and overall literacy success.

Reading Fluency – Leopold Primary School (P-6)
At Leopold Primary School, daily reading fluency sessions are designed to build confident, expressive, and accurate readers. The focus is on key components of fluency: accuracy (reading words correctly), pace (reading at an appropriate speed), voice, tone, expression, and volume, and prosody—the rhythm, phrasing, and intonation that bring meaning and emotion to reading aloud. Prosody reflects a reader’s understanding of punctuation, sentence structure, and narrative flow, allowing the text to sound natural and engaging. Students work in fluid groups based on their current fluency needs and rotate roles between reading aloud and listening. They provide peer feedback using clear success criteria, and each student sets individual reading fluency goals to guide their improvement. Progress is tracked over time through data collection, such as timed reads, accuracy scores, and qualitative observations, helping students take ownership of their growth and teachers to monitor development.

Comprehension: Making Meaning from Texts (P-6)

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading and a key element of the Big 6 of Reading. At Leopold Primary, we explicitly teach comprehension strategies to help students understand, interpret, and respond to a wide range of texts.

Through rich text and novel studies, students learn to make predictions, ask questions, infer meaning, and make connections. These lessons support deeper thinking and discussion, helping students become critical and reflective readers. Comprehension is embedded across the curriculum to ensure all students develop the skills to make meaning and engage in reading.

Novel/Text Studies 

At Leopold Primary School, Novel and Text Studies are an integral part of the Reading program and are purposefully selected to link with each year level’s Action Learning Unit. These knowledge-rich and engaging texts allow students to explore important themes and concepts in depth, while also developing essential English skills. Through these studies, students are explicitly taught comprehension strategies, including predicting, summarising, questioning, and inferring, to deepen their understanding of the text. They also analyse text structures—such as narrative, persuasive, or informative formats—and identify how authors organise ideas for different purposes and audiences. In addition, students examine literary devices such as metaphor, simile, personification, dialogue, and symbolism to understand how language shapes meaning and creates impact. Importantly, students’ writing is closely linked to these text structures, enabling them to apply their analytical insights when planning and composing their own texts. By analysing a variety of model texts, students learn to recognise effective writing techniques and use these as guides to develop their own voice and style. These rich texts not only promote critical thinking and discussion but also serve as a platform for students to connect their learning across curriculum areas, apply reading skills in authentic contexts, and build a strong foundation for written expression.

English Daily Review – Leopold Primary School
At Leopold Primary School, the English Daily Review is a 10–15 minute session conducted each day to reinforce and consolidate key literacy skills. This structured routine focuses on revisiting decoding and encoding skills, enabling students to practise reading and spelling words using known sound-letter relationships and previously taught spelling patterns. It also includes explicit revision of vocabulary linked to knowledge-rich English units and the school's Action Learning focus, ensuring students deepen their understanding of tiered vocabulary across curriculum areas. Additionally, the Daily Review includes a focus on syntax—the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences. Since students have been explicitly taught sentence structures (such as simple, compound, and complex sentences), grammar conventions, and punctuation, this part of the review reinforces their application of these skills in reading and writing tasks. The consistent, short, and focused format of the Daily Review allows for multiple exposures to core concepts, building fluency, accuracy, and confidence over time.