At Syndal South Primary School, Foundation students join a supportive community where they begin to develop the fundamental knowledge, skills and behaviours which will prepare them to become successful learners. They are encouraged, nurtured and challenged as they socialise and engage in a broad range of activities.

The importance of creating life long learners equipped with the skills required to succeed is at the forefront of our teachings at Syndal South. This is why the love of learning and the learning itself are not left to chance and we follow research-based programs such as Sounds Write, Fountis and Pinell and Envison.

Phonics
At Syndal South Primary School we use a systematic phonics program to support students learning to read, write and spell. This program also fosters speaking and listening skills which are the foundations for English. In this session, we explicitly teach students about the sounds letters make, spelling choices, blending and segmenting in English. We help children to understand the relationships between the phonemes of spoken English and the 26 letters of the alphabet.  Students participate in a wide-range of fun activities making our sessions powerful and engaging.

Reading
At Syndal South, we recognise that great readers need to be well-rounded in all areas of reading including fluency, decoding unknown words and discussing concepts within, beyond and about the text. After being assessed using the school-wide assessment program, Fountas and Pinnell, students strengths and areas for improvement in Reading are targeted. These are then specifically taught to in a range of lessons including whole class and smaller targeted groups called Guided Reading. In Guided Reading sessions, students will read a variety of genres and explore concepts such as authors message, text ideas and author’s craft.

To practise reading at home, all students will be given small books at their reading level called Take Home Readers. Reading one of these books each night is the only homework students in Foundation have. Your child's reading level will be determined by the Fountas and Pinell assessment. Practising the readers at home will help your child grow in decoding words, comprehending the text and developing their fluency.

Writing
We have a whole school writing program that encourages students to see themselves as real writers. To help students see themselves as writers and create authentic writing pieces, everyone in the school has their very own Writer’s Notebook where they collect ideas as writing seeds to feed their writing in a range of genres. Using strong mentor texts and experiences (hands-on activities, experiments, crafts and excursions) to generate ideas, we then begin the writing process. After completing the writing process, we celebrate our success as writers through publishing and celebrations. These celebrations include school-wide picnics, gallery walks and open nights to view the finished piece of writing. Within a writing lesson, students will also practise applying their strong knowledge of phonics by using deep phonological awareness to spell words.