Around 1999, someone came to the school to talk to the staff about a phonemic approach to decoding (reading) and encoding (writing/spelling). None of us had heard the term, phonemic, but as the session unfolded a couple of my friends and I began to realise that I was basically teaching that way. Read More
A phonemic approach to literacy
Blog/News
Barbara’s Blog: The birth of the Sound Waves program
Barbara Murray - Monday, August 19, 2019
Teacher LOVES PDFs of Sound Stories
Wendy McWilliams - Monday, August 12, 2019
Teresa, a teacher at a Perth Primary School, recently ordered the boxed set of Sound Stories for her students. She was ecstatic to hear that PDFs for each of the 43 stories in the books will be available very soon to teachers who buy the complete set for use in the classroom. Read More
Barbara's Blog: Along the way
Barbara Murray - Thursday, August 08, 2019
I taught quite a lot in lower primary classes, but once I moved into Years 4 to 7 I found children had no strategies for decoding when reading and encoding when writing (spelling). When I tried phonics with older students, they had no idea what I meant. I got the school spelling lists and rearranged them year level by year level according to sound. I grouped the words according to initial sounds for consonant sounds and mostly internal sounds for vowel sounds. Read More
Question to Australian Universities
Barbara Murray - Friday, July 19, 2019
Response to an article by Rebecca Urban, National Education Respondent for The Australian after an interview with Dr Jennifer Buckingham, as published in The Weekend Australian, 13-14 July 2019, page 9. Read More
Barbara's Blog: In the beginning...
Barbara Murray - Wednesday, July 10, 2019
I wanted to be a primary school teacher for as long as I can remember. At family gatherings I was the one who organised all the kids into games. Consequently, at the end of high school, I accepted a government scholarship to train as a primary teacher for two years. Read More