Structured literacy (SL) approaches emphasise highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (e.g., decoding, spelling) and higher-level literacy skills (e.g., reading comprehension, written expression). Structured Literacy also emphasises oral language abilities essential to literacy development, including phonemic awareness, sensitivity to speech sounds in oral language, and the ability to manipulate those sounds.

 

Explicit teaching means that teachers clearly explain and model key skills; they do not expect children to infer these skills only from exposure. Systematic means that there is a well-organised sequence of instruction, with important prerequisite skills taught before more advanced skills. For instance, children master decoding and spelling simpler consonant-vowel-consonant words (e.g., tap) with short vowel sounds before learning more complex short-vowel words (e.g., stamp or tapped) with consonant blends or affixes.