Welcome back
We hope you had an enjoyable holiday break and you are as excited as we are to start the new term!
We are committed to make this term a successful and rewarding one. We are excited that all our schools and students are now able to use the New Course upgrade that was launched in the holidays.
We continue to appreciate your very real support and encouragement; it makes a critical difference to the success of StepsWeb. Thank you!
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Check out our new activity, Rhyme. This activity asks students to pick pictures that rhyme with the base word/picture. Rhyme awareness is a crucial foundation skill for phonological awareness and early literacy. Keep an eye out for it in the Course!
You will see a range of exciting new phonological/language activities appearing over the next few months. Your feedback/comments are always welcome!
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We’ve been delighted by your feedback so far about the upgrade. There have also been some queries, which we’ll try to cover here.
There are several reasons behind the upgrade, which is very much in response to your suggestions/requests over the years:
- Add the Foundation Levels for New Entrant/lower-level students.
- Add more grammar content
- Include important numeracy/maths vocabulary
As a result of these changes, the Level the student is working on now has a new name (e.g. Level F is now Level 6). The order in which spelling patterns are presented will have changed in most cases so specific wordlists will also be different. However, the actual literacy level has not changed.
We acknowledge that some students might feel a bit anxious about these changes. We considered putting all students back to the beginning of their current Level. However, this would have wiped some of their medals and progress, which could be very disappointing, particularly for those who were close to finishing a Level and getting their certificate.
If you feel that a student is still struggling with the change in the particular spelling list they are currently working on, please look at the following options:
- Introduce the spelling pattern/vocabulary list to the students using the printable resources before letting them continue on through the Course.
- Student takes the Placement Test again. Normally, we don’t recommend this, but it would take the student to a Level you can be confident is appropriate for them.
Please be aware that, if they do take the Placement Test, all progress (including medals) between their new and old Levels will be wiped.
As teachers, you are of course in the best position to decide what is best for your students. However, if you would like any advice on Levels please do not hesitate to call us.
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Support Site
We've added these resources so far to the support site:
Scope and Sequence
Sample Workbook Units
We have always included the first units of each Level on the Support Site so that teachers can trial a Level with written support without wasting a workbook if a student’s Level does need to be adjusted.
However, this feature may be particularly useful to you at the moment, as we have been experiencing production/printing delays with the new workbooks (see below).
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Workbook Status
Workbooks A - D and 1-6 are now shipping.
Workbooks 7 and above are expected to be shipping in the next couple of weeks.
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Workbooks can be ordered by signing into to your Educator Login and going to the ‘Store’ button. Order the book that corresponds with the Level your student is currently on.
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For those who are still using Steps2 Network, the old workbooks can still be ordered by emailing sales@stepsweb.com.
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