WRAP: A Writing Approach to Reading is a recently developed Australian training course for teaching skill development in Spelling, Writing and Reading. The Hills Regional Skills Centre is a Registered Training Organisation (RTO) registered by the NSW Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board (VETAB) to deliver a range of nationally accredited school and post-school courses from Certificate I to Graduate Certificate. WRAP literacy training courses have been developed for teaching literacy, and are accredited by VETAB and 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.