Dear Parents and Carers,

THE SIMPLE VIEW OF READING: WORD RECOGNITION
The aim of learning to read is comprehension, or the capacity to extract meaning from print. Reading comprehension is largely the function of 2 broad skill sets, identified in the Simple View of Reading. These skills are word recognition and language comprehension.

At St Mary’s every class from Kindergarten to Year 6 starts their day with 25 minutes dedicated to word recognition. But what exactly is word recognition? Simply put, it's the ability to use groups of letters to recognise and understand words. While it may sound straightforward, there are many techniques to help us become more efficient readers and spellers as we grow.

In our K-2 classes we use the InitiaLit program which focuses on developing automatic word recognition through explicit instruction in letter-sound correspondences and the application of phonic skills in reading single words and sentences. In our Kinder class, students are developing their phonemic awareness—the ability to hear and play with parts of words and individual sounds. Our Year 1 and Year 2 classes enhance their understanding of phonics, focusing on how letters and combinations of letters represent the 44 sounds of the English language. They learn about various digraphs, including "ai," "ay," "ee," "ea," "oa," and "ow," along with other letter combinations like "igh," "ue," "ew," and more!

For our Year 3-6 students, the journey into the fascinating world of Morphology (the meaning in smaller parts of a word) and Etymology (words origin) has begun. During Spelling Mastery, we build dependable word recognition and spelling skills through a highly structured direct instruction method that blends the following approaches: 
Phonemic approach 
* Helps beginning spellers learn the relationships between spoken sounds and written letters and then apply them to spelling. 
Morphemic approach 
* Exposes advanced spellers to prefixes, bases and suffixes. 
* Combine words and word parts to spell multisyllabic words using a small number of reliable rules. 
Whole-word Approach 
* Gives spellers at all levels the meaning and root of a word and shows how the word's spelling is influenced. 
* Spell common, high-frequency words which are irregular in their letter sounds. 
* Commit these potentially troublesome words to memory.  

Students in Year 3 to 6 participate in four 20 minute Spelling Mastery lessons each week. Explicit instruction, careful selection of spelling words, and repeated and cumulative practise help students master each concept and reinforce and retain key information.

We look forward to witnessing the growth in all our students as they continue to build their skills in word recognition.

ICAS ASSESSMENTS
These optional academic competitions test students’ higher-order thinking skills and develop critical thinking and problem solving through academic challenges. St Mary's is offering Maths, English, Science and Spelling Bee for Years 2-6 and Writing and Digital Technology for Year 3-6. 

Every student who participates is celebrated and recognised with a printed certificate in each subject area, and an online results report to track development each year. Top performers are eligible for one of the highly coveted ICAS medals.

To learn more about this year’s exciting ICAS competition, visit: (icasassessments.com/products-icas/)

How to participate in ICAS  

If you wish for your child to participate in ICAS this year, please:  

1. Read about ICAS subjects and prices here: (icasassessments.com/products-icas/)  
2. Read the Privacy Collection Statement below.
3. Read the terms and conditions here: (icasassessments.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-ICAS-Assessments-Schools-TsCs_S2023.V6-1.pdf) 
4. Go to the Parent Portal to sign up to chosen subject areas here: (shop.icasassessments.com/pages/pps)  
5. Enter our school’s access code – SJE888 
6. Enter your child’s details, select the subject areas your child would like to participate in, then proceed to payment.

ICAS results and certificates
All assessments will be conducted online, at school. We will notify you of the date(s) that we will run ICAS assessments, and when your child’s ICAS results are ready. Your child’s ICAS certificates will be delivered to school. Once we have received them, we will present them to your child to bring home. The back of the certificate will show your child’s ICAS results and the login details, “TAP ID and Pin”. - Use these to enter the Results Portal orti.icasassessments.com/ortiStudent

Privacy collection statement  
The following information is a privacy notification about how your child’s data is kept private and secure.

ICAS Assessment is owned by Janison Solutions Pty Ltd (We, Us, Our).

To deliver assessment products, Janison will require your child’s School to obtain your consent to provide Janison with certain personal information of students. Janison will collect, store, use, disclose and otherwise deal with such personal information in accordance with its privacy policy (below). We are aware of our responsibility to protect personal information related to children and students from being disclosed when we deliver an ICAS Assessments product. Unless you, as the child’s legal guardian consents, we will not:

• collect any personal information or data of children other than the information we need for the successful completion of an assessment, test, or exam. 

• transfer any personal information we obtain from a child in the delivery of assessments and tests to any jurisdiction outside of Australia. 

• share any personal information relating to children with any third parties (except for those third parties necessary for us to carry out our Services or provide our Products e.g., medal engraving). 

• use any personal information or data relating to children for marketing purposes.
  
  You can view our full privacy policy at https://www.janison.com/privacy-policy/. 

We may retain personal information and data relevant to a child for their future purposes or for research purposes by Janison for the duration of the school life cycle of the child. However, if you or your child at any time wish to have their personal information or data removed from our systems, they or you may opt out by simply contacting our Privacy Officer at privacy@janison.com or by contacting icasassessments@janison.com.

ICAS Assessments 2025

Parent orders close Monday 28 July 2025

God bless and take care,

Mrs Sue Heffernan
Assistant Principal