Helpful Links & Information
For Students
For Parents & Caregivers
Stationery Lists for 2025 Kindergarten Year 1 and 2 Year 3 to 6
Teacher Talk - understanding Education Jargon
Do you sometimes hear words used at school, but wonder what they really mean?
Educational terminology can be overwhelming with so many buzzwords and acronyms to remember.
This is a list of academic words and acronyms that you may hear used by teachers, to describe teaching and learning. This week we will focus on terminology that we use when teaching reading.
Lookout for this segment in our Newsletter throughout the year.
What is a Phoneme?
You can't read without phonemes and you can't phoneme without reading!
A phoneme is a speech sound. It's the smallest unit of sound that distinguishes one word from another. As the smallest units of sounds, phonemes form the individual sounds within words. For example:
- The word 'cat' has three phonemes: /c/ /a/ /t/.
- The word ‘dog’ consists of three phonemes /d/ /o/ /g/.
- The word ‘charm’ also consists of three phonemes /ch/ /ar/ /m/.
Since sounds cannot be written down, we use letters to represent them. This can be one letter or a cluster of letters that make one sound. These are known as graphemes.
What is a Grapheme?
A grapheme is a kind of symbol that represents a sound (phoneme) in writing. A grapheme can consist of just one letter or a group of letters.
Tier 1 words - Common words (Basic Vocabulary)
Basic words used often in everyday conversation such as dog, go, happy, drink and play.
Tier 2 words - Sophisticated language (High Frequency/multiple Meaning Vocabulary)
More complex, frequently occurring words in academic settings such as compare, contrast and collaborate
Tier 3 words - Content specific words
Highly specialised words that are related to a specific discipline such as isosceles, sonata and quagmire.
Define
Literacy
Literacy is the ability to understand and evaluate meaning through reading and writing, listening and speaking, viewing and representing.
Numeracy
Numeracy means understanding how mathematics is used in the real world and being able to apply it to make the best possible decisions. It’s as much about thinking and reasoning as about 'doing sums'.
Working Mathematically
Working mathematically is the thinking and doing of mathematics. It is understanding mathematics through exploring and connecting mathematical processors to solve problems and communicate reasoning coherently and clearly.
What are Predictable Texts?
A text that is easily navigated and read by beginning readers because they contain highly regular features such as familiar subject matter, a high degree of repetition, consistent placement of text and illustrations, simple sentences, familiar vocabulary and a small number of sight words.
What are Decodable Texts?
Decodable texts are texts that can be read using decoding skills a student has acquired. Decodable text is usually associated with beginning readers.
Numeracy
Split strategy
Mental computation method where numbers are 'split' according to their place value to make it easier to add them.
Example: For 46 + 33 the numbers are split to become
(40 + 30) + (6 + 3) = 70 + 9 = 79
Compensation strategy
One number is rounded to simplify the calculation then the answer is adjusted to compensate for the original change.
Example for addition: 52 + 39...
Think 52 + 40 = 92, then subtract the extra 1 added to 39 at the start.
So, 52 + 40 − 1 = 91
Informal units of measurements
An informal unit of measurement is a non-standard form of measurement. Informal units of measurement include, hand spans, paper clips, cubes, counters, dominoes, etc. The informal units are used to measure objects in lengths, from one end to another, like you would with formal measurements like centimetres.
Concrete materials
Concrete resources (also referred to as manipulatives) are objects or physical resources that children can handle and manipulate to aid their understanding of different maths concepts. While the abstract nature of maths can be confusing for children, through the use of these concrete, practical resources, they are able to ‘see’ the maths and make sense of what is actually happening.
English
Simple sentences
A sentence that has one verb, one idea, stands alone and makes sense.
Also known as an independent clause.
Example: Lucy is going to the park.
Compound sentences
Two or more simple sentences joined together by a conjunction.
Example: Lucy is going to the park and she is taking the dog for a walk.
What is Cognitive Load Theory?
Cognitive Load Theory provides an explanation of how students absorb new information. Our memory has a limited capacity to learn and it is very easy to overload with new information. Teachers often use this theory to help them dictate how new subject information is delivered to students as it can vastly alter learning outcomes. Essentially, it's all about how teachers adapt their lessons to cater to their students' working memory.
The theory came out of John Sweller's research into problem-solving in the 1980s. Sweller wanted to understand the ways in which humans gain knowledge and how the cognitive load can be reduced to retain information for longer.
Cognitive load theory looks at the detailed relationship between what is called the 'working memory' and the 'long-term memory.' Without the ability to process information in the working memory, that data won't make it to the long-term memory banks. As a result, this information will not be recalled later.
What is cognitive overload?
Cognitive overload is a state of mental exhaustion that occurs when the demands placed on working memory exceed its capacity. Working memory is the part of the brain that holds and manipulates information temporarily while performing cognitive tasks. When the amount of information exceeds the capacity of working memory, it can result in decreased performance, difficulty concentrating, and other negative outcomes.