Overview
WRAP provides the teacher with a ‘kit bag’ of multisensory, efficient and effective strategies for developing and building on foundational literacy skills. Students can systematically build on this foundation using writing and reading to learn in meaningful contexts.
WRAP is more than just a phonics program. Integrated learning occurs through students’ use of the phonemes learned or reviewed within a lesson sequence. These sounds are used in the selected vocabulary and students can explore the patterns and rules that apply. This takes much of the guesswork out of spelling. Through a selected writing focus, students discover how this vocabulary works in sentences. This builds a strong foundation for writing, reading and comprehending related sentences, paragraphs and passages, giving students access to a world of text.
Trainees include teachers, teacher aides, ESL teachers, speech and language pathologists, special educators, parents, and literacy tutors.
Trainees learn how to teach:
- Phonemic Awareness Instruction
- Phonics Instruction
- Vocabulary Instruction
- Grammar for Sentence Instruction
- Text Types for Writing Instruction
- Reading and Text Comprehension Instruction
- Metacognitive Strategy Instruction for Writing and Reading
Foundational Elements
WRAP: A Writing Approach to Reading is an Australian developed training course for teaching skill development in Spelling, Writing and Reading. WRAP literacy training courses have been developed for teaching literacy, and are delivered through The Hills Regional Skills Centre.
The need for developing this training came out of a recognition within a number of schools that ــ whilst schools addressed the learning of English in holistic ways ــ there was a distinct deficit in teaching and learning processes for explicit, systematic and integrated instruction. Teachers and specialists have developed an approach which demonstrates excellence in teaching practice, based on areas identified in research on the Psychology of Reading and Reading Development. Some of these areas include:
1. RESEARCH-BASED TEACHING PRACTICE
Research-based teaching practices are defined and instructional practices are rehearsed and developed by teachers under the guidance of experienced instructors.
2. A FULL RANGE OF LANGUAGE EXPERIENCES
Instructional practices need to include, and develop, a full range of language experiences so that teachers gain proficiency in teaching foundational literacy sub-skills and their application.
3. INTEGRATED AND SYSTEMATIC LITERACY INSTRUCTION
Instruction needs to be both integrated and systematic. Integrated instruction teaches both individual literacy skills and the interactive use of these skills. Systematic instruction enables students to understand the learning processes and therefore make cognitive connections to spoken and then printed English.
4. A NEW GENERATION OF PHONICS
Phonics addresses critical skill building in the well-researched areas of Phonemic Awareness and Phonic knowledge. 46 speech sounds and 70 symbols replace the oft taught, but inadequate correlation of one sound for one letter. Students explore sound/symbol options (Phonemic Awareness) through auditory/visual processes. Phonics instruction must immediately apply isolated sound/symbol combinations within whole words.
5. MULTISENSORY INSTRUCTION
Developing auditory, visual and tactile-kinaesthetic processes will ensure that all learning modalities are addressed and that each pupil’s sensory system is developing for Spelling, Writing and Reading. Seeing, hearing, saying and writing sounds helps students conceptualise sounds and speech in vocabulary, develop linguistic awareness and access meaning constructed from print.
6. TRANSLATION FROM RESEARCH INTO LITERACY PRACTICE
Evidence-based research needs to be translated from theory into practical teaching techniques. Instructional expertise will give teachers greater confidence to exercise professional judgement when evaluating pupils’ progress and developing programs which meets students’ literacy needs within their current curriculum.
7. METACOGNITIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES
Current research and internationally recognised teaching strategies and techniques are applied to Spelling, Written Expression and Reading Comprehension. An appreciation about language learning is achieved through a blend of perceptual and cognitive development, and metacognitive understanding.
Structure of WRAP
The complete WRAP program consists of three parts.
Course A- (Introduction to WRAP) including Phonemic Awareness & Phonics Instruction supporting Vocabulary Building.
Course B – (WRAP Continued) including Vocabulary Building supporting writing to Sentence Level.
Course C – (WRAP Final) including Grammar for Sentence Writing, Writing and Text Structure, Reading and Text Comprehension.