What is a "Structured Literacy Approach"?

A structured literacy programme introduces language sounds one at a time in an appropriate order. Learners are taught sound-to-letter combinations. For example, the spelling 'ai' sounds like /ai/ (as in 'rain'). Not only can we read the word 'rain' now, but we can spell it by writing down the spellings for each sound - /r/ /ai/ /n/. The programme books only use words with those sound-letter combination pairings that have already been taught and are thus ‘decodable’ by the learner. 

At the same time, individual ‘sight words’ are introduced. Sight words (also called ‘tricky words’, 'irregular spellings' and ‘heart words’) are those that do not abide by the usual rules of English and, therefore, need to be learned by ‘sight’/’heart’ or are ‘tricky’. We call these Survival Lists* because you need to know these to 'survive' writing at school!

This method means the learner can confidently read every word of their book by applying the sound-letter combination rules. Additionally, learners do not use inappropriate strategies (like guessing at words or using picture clues) to help them read - they can actually read the words on the page. Learners are often surprised they don't need to 'remember' every word - now you can 'decode' any word left-to-right whether or not you have seen it before. No 'remembering'. Magic!

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This approach means learning to read is viable for all learners regardless of whether they are strong readers, poor readers or have a disability, like dyslexia. We've had the privilege of watching children take control of their learning via this approach and have witnessed the joy of being able to read for the first time. Priceless.

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*Credit to Lyn Stone (Lifelong Literacy) for the great term.

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Here are the 12 aspects of literacy that are covered in Lucy's Literacy for All Learners programme:

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