Support groups of no more than six students per group for two sessions a week in order to further the development of their literacy skills. Classes cover reading fluency and strategies for independent reading such as predicting, clarifying the meaning of unknown vocabulary, questioning what they read and summarising. The conventions of writing such as spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and paragraphing are also reviewed. Students are encouraged to consider personal literacy goals and to write reflections about their progress. Emphasis is also placed on the organisational skills required for students to cope at school.

QuickSmart is a support program that focuses on the literacy learning needs of students with the aim of supporting students to ‘speed up’ their basic skills in reading. It is essentially a practice program that helps students to improve reading speed and comprehension. Improvements in these basic academic skills benefit students in all areas of their learning. Students are withdrawn from class in groups of no more than six students per group for three half-hour sessions a week for thirty weeks. These intervention sessions include:

• reading fluency and strategies for independent reading such as predicting, clarifying the meaning of unknown vocabulary, questioning what they read and summarising
• conventions of writing such as spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and paragraphing
• considering personal literacy goals and to write reflections about their progress
• organisational skills required for students to cope at school
• reading games designed to consolidate students’ word recognition and word meaning knowledge; and
• regular testing on selected tasks from the CAAS.

For more information, visit the SIMERR (University of New England) website:
https://simerr.une.edu.au/quicksmart/pages/qsreading-intervention.php

The primary aim of the QuickSmart intervention is to develop automaticity. That is, to increase students’ strategy use and improve their automatic recall of basic number facts across all four operations.
QuickSmart lessons emphasise the development of conceptual understanding. Students are explicitly taught strategies that develop their understanding of key numeracy concepts. These intervention sessions include:

• timed recall of basic number facts from a targeted set of focus number facts;
• speed sheets that also relate to the same set of focus facts and include extension number facts;
• opportunities to consolidate the use of strategies for calculating number facts; and
• the use of a prompt scaffold to solve mathematical problems and establish knowledge of problem-solving routines.

For more information, visit the SIMERR (University of New England) website:
https://simerr.une.edu.au/quicksmart/pages/qsmathematics-intervention.php