Flying Start to Literacy

Launch young readers into literacy through rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and highly predictive texts. Visually appealing, presenting familiar and favourite topics, the Big Books will be sure to delight your students.

Develop early literacy skills through rhyme, rhythm, repetition and highly predictive texts

Sixteen Shared Big Books on familiar topics will soon become favourites in your classroom.

Each title is linked to a Vocabulary Starter. This provides an opportunity to develop oral vocabulary around the content of the book. Each of the Shared Reading Books is accompanied with a Vocabulary Starter and an easy-to-follow Lesson Plan.

Your students will:

• Begin to recognise and read high-frequency words
• Build knowledge of oral vocabulary
• Understand conventions of print
• Enjoy reading together and revisiting familiar books again and again

Not just paired, but connected.

Paired books address the same concepts, vocabulary and high-frequency words in different text types and sentence structure to reinforce your students reading strategies.

• After the Shared Reading stage (16 Big Books), there are 9 developmental reading stages (316 titles) comprising connected pairs of books written with a different text type.
• Paired books address the same concepts, vocabulary and high-frequency words in different text types and sentence structures
• High-frequency words are gradually and systematically introduced and reused
• There is a high rate of repetition of high-frequency words and a low ratio of unfamiliar words.
• There is a balance of illustrated narrative and photographic informative books.
• There is a wide range of text types – narratives, recounts, procedures, explanations, reports and persuasive texts.

Flying Start Perspectives present short, point-of-view texts exploring the issues raised by the big ideas in the accompanying paired texts. It will extend your students’ thinking with additional views of the issue.

• At the middle/upper primary levels we continue the award-winning formula of pairing a narrative text with an informative text both connected by the same big side, and introduce a third title to the pair, a Flying Start Perspectives book.
• Perspective texts present issues related to the paired texts. They introduce thinking and talking circles to promote deep discussion and prepare students to write about the different points of view presented.

Direct reading support

The Flying Start to Literacy Vocabulary Starters laminated cards provide direct reading support to your young students from Pre-school – Year 1.

• Unique to the Pre-school–F and the Early Emergent Stage. There is one Vocabulary Starter for each Pre-School–F title and for each pair of Early Emergent Stage books.
• Each Vocabulary Stater introduces the written form of key vocabulary through unambiguous, labelled photographs.
• Vocabulary Starters can be read as a book, or displayed as a word bank to support beginning readers and writers.
• On the back of the photographs are suggestions for building oral, reading and writing vocabulary, as well as reading and writing activities for each book.

Handy Lesson Plans for practical and systematic instruction

The Lesson Plans for each pair of books integrate oral language, vocabulary development, fluency and comprehension, when appropriate to the reading level. The comprehensive Lesson Plans also include writing components as an integral part of each lesson.

• 193 Lesson Plans – one for each pair of books (plus 1 for each Shared reading and Perspectives title).
• There are Before, During and After Reading Activities for each book, plus a synthesising activity focussing on the key concepts of both books.
• Each Lesson Plan can be split into four 30-minute instructional sessions and one review session.
• Each Lesson Plan integrates oral language, comprehension, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, fluency and writing.
• Each Lesson Plan includes ongoing assessment and follow up activities.