What is Minilit?

MiniLit stands for ‘Meeting Initial Needs In Literacy’ and is an early literacy intervention program. It is designed to be delivered daily, for one hour, to small groups of up to four students who have struggled to make adequate progress in learning to read during their first year of schooling.

Who developed MiniLit?

MiniLit is the product of an ongoing program of research and development carried out by a specialist team of academic researchers and special educators, led by Emeritus Professor Kevin Wheldall AM, originally from Macquarie University.

How will it be delivered?

MiniLit will be delivered 4 times per week, for approximately one hour per lesson by Education Assistants.

What are the key benefits?

  • Evidence-based small group program with a proven track record of success
  • Cost-effective, with low ongoing operating costs
  • Detailed and proven lesson plans for teachers or teacher aides to follow

What is included in the program?

MiniLit is an integrated and balanced program of 80 carefully structured lessons, divided into two levels of 40 lessons each:

A placement test is used to identify the ideal starting point on the program for each student, with criteria provided for grouping students.

Each lesson comprises three main components:

      • Sounds and Words Activities
      • Text Reading
      • Story Book Reading
The program includes phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and text comprehension and the main activities in phonemic awareness relate to learning to blend and segment once students are familiar with some letter-sound relationships.