Learning Difficulties Australia BULLETIN Volume 43 No 2 December 2011 Contents p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p9 p10 Council Members LDA Notices LDA AGM and Awards Presentation 2011 New members of Council 2011/2012 Introduction to Fay Tran: Dick Weigall OAM Dick Weigall OAM LDA Awards 2012 Guessing words from context is not reading: Fay Tran The National Year of Reading 2012 Read all about it: Jo-Anne Dooner p12 Dyslexia in the Netherlands and Australia what can we learn?: Charlotte D. Steeg and Nola Firth p15 p17 p18 Book Reviews Success and Dyslexia Teaching Oral Language SPELD SA Free Phonic Books Consultant News: Jan Roberts Report from Victorian Referral Officer: Elaine McLeish From the President 2011 was another busy time for LDA. Notably, we ran another Combined Conference with SPELD and LSTAQ (Learning Support Teacher s Association of Queensland) in Brisbane. This biennial combined conference continues to be important for delivering professional development to LDA members and for boosting our profile in states outside of Victoria. Many thanks must go to Dr Louise Mercer who has worked tirelessly over the last four years to ensure the success of two successive conferences. Louise also put in an enormous amount of work as President in 2010/2011, and we hope that she enjoys a wellearned break this coming year. In addition to the Brisbane Combined Conference, there has been a number of quality professional development events in 2011. Kevin Wheldall, Robyn Beaman and their MultiLit team ran an excellent series of presentations on the Response to Intervention (RTI) model. One of the core principles of RTI is that young students should be inoculated against failure in academic areas through exposure to evidence-based instruction at high levels of intensity. Sadly this approach is lacking in all but a few Australian schools and students continue to be disabled by a wait and see approach. We welcome two new members to the 2011/2012 LDA Council. Sue de Araugo, who has been an LDA Consultant since 1998 and was a member of the Consultants Policy Committee in 2011, has now joined LDA Council and will take over from Jan Roberts as Convenor of the Consultants Committee LDA Mission Statement Learning Difficulties Australia is an association of teachers and other professionals dedicated to assisting students with learning difficulties through effective teaching practices based on scientific research, both in the classroom and through individualised instruction. for the 2011/2012 year, and Dr Nicole Todd, an education lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), has also joined the 2011/2012 LDA Council. Retiring members of Council are Olivia Connelly, who did not renominate for the 2011/2012 LDA Council, and Elaine McLeish, who resigned as a member of LDA Council to take on the new role of Administrative Assistant to the Consultants Committee, as well as continuing in her role as Referral Officer for the LDA Referral Service in Victoria. Looking forward to 2012, we intend to give the LDA website a facelift and to enhance its ability to host multimedia content. The latter will provide members with access to podcasts and vodcasts for their professional development. PD opportunities for members in states other than Victoria are somewhat limited at present and we hope that online material will improve their access to good training and provide them with more value for their membership. We also hope that the availability of online content that can be consumed at people s leisure will help LDA generate a wider membership base. LDA has also become a partner in the 2012 National Year of Reading, and has joined with other organisations to promote an understanding of the benefits of reading and to encourage a reading culture in every home. Continued on page 2... p20 Membership form For more details of LDA activities, professional development opportunities and publications, visit our website at www.ldaustralia.org Articles and advertising in the Bulletin do not necessarily reflect the opinions or carry the endorsements of the Association
2 Membership of LDA Council 2011/2012 OFFICE BEARERS President Craig Wright (Qld) President-Elect Lorraine Hammond (WA) Immediate Past President Louise Mercer (Qld) Treasurer Pye Twaddell (NSW) Secretary Molly de Lemos (Vic) COUNCIL MEMBERS Margaret Cameron (SA) Anne Castles (NSW) Sue de Araugo (Vic) Ruth Fielding-Barnsley (Qld) Lyndsey Nickels (NSW) Alison Madelaine (NSW) Barbara Nielsen (SA) Jan Roberts (Vic) Nicole Todd (Qld) COMMITTEES AND CONVENORS Executive/Management Group Convenor: Craig Wright Administration Committee Convenor: Molly de Lemos Publications Committee Convenor: Alison Madelaine Consultants Committee Convenor: Sue de Araugo Professional Development Committee Convenor: Craig Wright PUBLICATIONS Executive Editor: Alison Madelaine Journal Editors: Kevin Wheldall and Alison Madelaine Journal Associate Editor: Ruth Fielding- Barnsley Bulletin Editors: Molly de Lemos, Margaret Cameron, and Craig Wright WEBSITE Website Editor: Margaret Cameron REFERRAL SERVICE Referral Officer, Victoria: Elaine McLeish ADMINISTRATION Administration Officer: Kerrie McMahon... continued from page 1 Our particular focus will be on promoting effective teaching practices for the initial teaching of reading and to ensure adequate and ongoing support for children who have difficulties in learning to read, so that all children learn to read to a level that allows them to participate fully in our literate society. Craig Wright LDA President LDA NOTICES LDA Seminars and Workshops, Melbourne Saturday 25 February 2012, 9:00am to 12:30pm Topic: Reading Recovery What works best? Venue: University of Melbourne Hawthorn Campus, 442 Auburn Rd, Hawthorn Presenters: Professor Tom Nicholson, Massey University, NZ; Professor John Hattie, University of Melbourne; Dr Maximillian Pfost, Department of Educational Research at the University of Bamberg, Germany; Dr Kerry Hempenstall, RMIT Cost: Members of LDA and SPELD Victoria, $50; Non-members, $80 Deadline for Booking: Monday 20 February Saturday 24 March 2012, 9:00am to 5:00pm (registration from 8:30am) Topic: Jolly Phonics Professional Development and Training Venue: Jika International Motel and Conference Centre, 551 Heidelberg Road, Fairfield Presenter: Jan Polkinghorne, Educational Consultant for SPELD SA Cost: Members of LDA, $150; Non-members of LDA, $200 Deadline for Booking: Monday 19 March Consultants Weekend Seminars 2012 The following program of Weekend Seminars has been organised by the LDA Consultants Committee. All members of LDA and non-lda members are welcome to attend. Sessions include a brief Consultants meeting and refreshments. Sunday 18 March 2012, 9:30am to 12:00pm Topic: Psychological and educational assessments diagnosing learning difficulties Venue: SPELD Victoria, 494 Brunswick St, Fitzroy North, Victoria Consultants meeting: 9:30am 10:00am Speaker: Jennifer Finemore (Psychologist): 10:00am 11:30am Refreshments and networking: 11:30am 12:00pm Cost: Members of LDA, $30; Non-members of LDA, $45; students, $10. Deadline for Booking: Friday 9 March Saturday 9 June 2012, 9:30am to 12:00pm Topic: The role of spelling in literacy and strategies for students with learning difficulties Venue: International House (Room 6 Ian McLennan House), 241 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria Consultants meeting: 9:30am 10:00am Speaker: Jan Roberts (LDA Consultant): 10:00am 11:30am Refreshments and networking: 11:30am 12:00pm Cost: Members of LDA, $30; Non-members of LDA, $45; students, $10. Deadline for Booking: Friday 1 June Bookings For further information and booking forms, see the LDA website at ldaustralia.org, or contact Kerrie McMahon, at ldaquery@bigpond.net.au. BULLETIN DECEMBER 2011
3 LDA AGM and Awards Presentation 2011 T he LDA AGM and Awards presentation was held in Melbourne on Saturday 15 October at the Hawthorn Campus of the University of Melbourne, and was attended by some 30 members of LDA, including long-standing members Chris and Mim Davidson and Dick Weigall. In her report to the AGM, the outgoing President Louise Mercer noted that 2015 will mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of LDA, in its initial guise as the Diagnostic and Remedial Teachers Association of Victoria. Louise reminded members that Dr Jo Jenkinson s six-part article series, describing the history of LDA, is now available on the website and makes for excellent reading. While much has been achieved in the past 46 years, Louise noted that LDA has a long road ahead to ensure that individuals with specific learning difficulties are recognised and supported in the manner that is already mandated in many other countries. Following the AGM, the LDA Awards were presented, with the Bruce Wicking Award being presented to Fay Tran, in recognition of her longstanding commitment to the support of students with learning difficulties. The Mona Tobias Award was subsequently presented to Angela Weeks, in recognition of her work in developing SPELD SA s network of services and resources for students with learning difficulties, and for the professional staff who support them. Angela Weeks, recipient of the Mona Tobias Award, accepting her award from Dr Louise Mercer, President of LDA. Fay Tran, recipient of the Bruce Wicking Award, accepting her award from Dr Louise Mercer. New members of Council 2011/2012 L DA welcomes two new members to the LDA Council for 2011/2012, Sue de Araugo and Nicole Todd. Sue de Araugo has been a Consultant member of LDA since 1998, and became a member of the Consultant Policy Committee in 2011. She qualified as a teacher in 1972, and completed an MEd in Special Education at Melbourne University in 1996. She has taught for many years in both country and metropolitan schools. After teaching at the early primary level at Canterbury Primary School, Sue moved into Reading Recovery and Special Education. She is also a qualified MultiLit tutor. Sue will be taking on the role of Convenor of the Consultants Committee in the 2011/2012 Council. Dr Nicole Todd is currently an education lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) at the Springfield Campus in Brisbane, and has been in this position for five years. Previously she was a special education lecturer for seven years at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Her focus is on inclusive education and, specifically, quality education for students with learning difficulties. She has taught in regular schools and special education settings involving students from three to 18 years of age across Australia and also in England. Her varied career in education includes being a consultant in learning assistance for the New South Wales Department of Education and Training as well as director of an education support centre assisting the local school community with students requiring additional assistance with learning. She recently completed her doctorate at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) on the influence of school culture on the role of the Learning Difficulties Support Teacher. She also has an MA in Special Education from Macquarie University, a BEd in Special Education from the University of Western Australia, and a BA in Education/Psychology from the University of Queensland. Nicole served for many years in the 1990s and early 2000 s on the Committee of the Australian Association of Special Education (AASE). DECEMBER 2011 BULLETIN
4 Introduction to Fay Tran By coincidence Dick Weigall, who presented a brief introduction to Fay Tran prior to the presentation of her Bruce Wicking Award, was a colleague of both Fay Tran and Bruce Wicking, first in the 1960s and then in the 1980s. In his introduction to Fay Tran, he refers to these past connections, and gives some insight into the processes that are required to understand and support those students who have difficulties with learning. Fay Tran was my colleague at Geelong Grammar, where she was a learning support teacher in the 1980s. In the 1960s I had worked with another outstanding teacher at Geelong Grammar. His name was Bruce Wicking. He was an enthusiast and an innovator, who took a refreshingly new approach to teaching and was later to found Currajong, for those whom schools have failed. So you see, we don t just play football in Geelong! But we are here today to recognise the work of Fay Tran. We are now all familiar with the term reading wars, which went on for over 20 years. One can t help comparing the reading wars to World War 2. For many years after 1945, there were still enemy fighters on some remote Pacific islands, out of touch with the rest of the world. They didn t know the war was over, and in their ignorance they fired pot shots at startled fishermen. The last soldier surrendered in 1974. I wonder if the reading wars are really over. Perhaps there are still a few stray bullets. But who is the enemy? Fay s only enemies are the enemies of reason. Happily for the world, Fay was a great diarist, but unlike that great diarist Samuel Pepys, she wrote to be clearly understood. She painstakingly recorded her difficulties and successes over a quarter of a century, and used these as a source for her book Teaching Kids to Read. Lewis Carroll once apologised to a friend for writing him such a long letter, as he hadn t had time to shorten it. But Fay has managed to condense all she has learnt, from her many years of experience, to write a relatively short, eminently readable book, where every word counts. Here we find that wonderful combination academic wisdom combined with coal-faced knowledge and methods. In an artfully written work, she is never pontifical and always informal and chatty. It s like sitting down in the staff room and having a chat with Fay. Never dogmatic, she likens the learning process to embarking on a journey to a fairly vague destination by means of a poorly mapped road. She takes us on that journey as she shares her lifetime s passion for teaching literacy. Occasionally she meets a rock-fall on the road and is stymied, but will not rest until she finds a solution. What makes the book so eminently readable is her frequent use of case studies, written like diary entries. Her approach to teaching reflects a thorough understanding of how children learn. She recognises the needs of specific children with learning difficulties, the importance of explicit instruction, practice, the opportunities to apply new learning in achieving mastery, and the need for ongoing monitoring and assessment. In documenting these strategies in her book, Fay has provided an important resource for teachers and parents. One grateful parent described the book as by far the most inspiring, practical and informative book I have found. Nothing concerned with good teaching is considered too trivial to mention, so that we are shown precisely (and I mean precisely) how to hear a child read and how to teach him or her to spell. We believe that Fay s commitment to effective teaching practice is based on sound evidence. Her willingness to stand up to opposition in support of her principles is deserving of high praise. Peter Westwood says that Fay s book is really about very much more than simply teaching phonics. The author touches on many symptoms of learning difficulties, and suggests how these difficulties may be addressed appropriately in the classroom and at home. Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, He was not of an age but for all time. Fay s teaching wisdom is for all time, and for everywhere. Thank you, my colleague and mentor. Teaching reading and writing with a phonological emphasis A workshop organised by SPELD Victoria focusing on how to deconstruct spoken words to improve reading and spelling, and how to teach practical phonics. Presented by Professor Tom Nicholson of Massey University in Auckland, NZ and Associate Professor Ruth Fielding-Barnsley of the University of Tasmania in Launceston. Friday 24 February, 9:30am 3:30pm At SPELD Victoria, 494 Brunswick Street, North Fitzroy Cost: $125 For further information and bookings see the SPELD website at www.speldvic.org.au or phone SPELD on (03) 9489 4344 BULLETIN DECEMBER 2011
5 Dick Weigall OAM LDA s sends belated congratulations to Dick Weigall for his Award of the Order of Australia Medal in 2010 for service to children and adults with learning disabilities, particularly through the development of special education programs, techniques and materials. Dick is a longstanding member of LDA, and was appointed a Life Member of LDA in 1988 in recognition of his contribution to LDA, particularly to the LDA Journal. From 1974 to 2005 he co-edited the Journal with Chris Davidson, and was particularly involved in writing the editorials, as well as contributing articles, cartoons, and cover designs. Dick qualified as a primary teacher in 1956 and joined the staff of Geelong Grammar in 1960. His creative talent emerged early in his teaching career, when he developed a series of resources to assist students to develop their spelling, LDA Awards 2012 Members of LDA are invited to submit nominations for the 2012 Mona Tobias and Bruce Wicking Awards. Applications are also called for the 2012 LDA Tertiary Student Award. The closing date for nominations and applications is 30 June 2012. These Awards are open to both members and non-members of LDA. LDA reserves the right not to confer an Award. The LDA Awards are designed to recognise outstanding work in the field of learning difficulties. The Mona Tobias Award The Mona Tobias Award is by nomination, and is presented in recognition of an outstanding contribution to the field of learning difficulties in Australia. This contribution may be in the area of leadership, research, practice or teacher and community education. Emily Mona Tobias, B.E.M., died in 1980 at the age of 74 years. She was acknowledged for her exceptional skills as a teacher and her devotion to children with learning difficulties. Mona took early retirement from the Victorian Education Department to study learning disabilities under Sam Clements at the University of Arkansas. This led to her second career where she influenced many teachers and parents of students with learning difficulties. The Mona Tobias Award commemorates the pioneering work reading and literacy skills. In the 1960s he developed the APS Spelling Kit, followed by three card games called Grammar Match. Later with Chris Davidson he designed three Spellout games ( Race Through Reading, Sail through Spelling, Pony Club Trail Ride ) to develop children s spelling, reading and literacy skills. Widely used at the time, these games were enjoyed by children and reinforced their spelling and grammar skills. However with the advent of whole language and the discovery approach to learning, the focus on specific teaching of language skills fell out of favour. He subsequently became involved in a media campaign advocating sound teaching practices based on systematic teaching of essential skills. Following his retirement in 1993 from Geelong Grammar, he began voluntary work at Barwon Valley Special Development School in 1994, teaching literacy and numeracy. In 1997 he also began teaching at Scope s REAP adult literacy program in Geelong. He has continued working with Chris Davidson on the production of the SPELD Bulletin and the Australian Journal of Dyslexia and Specific Learning Difficulties, published by SPELD Victoria, contributing cartoons and articles and assisting with editing and proof reading. More recently he has worked with Angela Weeks in illustrating the free Phonics Books produced by SPELD SA. Dick Weigall is a quiet achiever. Over the past 50 years he has contributed immeasurably to the cause of helping students with learning difficulties. He has achieved this through teaching, developing resources, contributing to LDA and SPELD publications, supporting his colleagues, and through his ongoing commitment to effective teaching for those children who need it most. We are pleased that his contributions to the areas of special education and learning difficulties have been recognised by this well deserved award. of Mona Tobias in helping children and adults with learning difficulties. The Bruce Wicking Award The Bruce Wicking Award is by nomination, and is presented to an individual or an organisation in recognition of innovative programs or practices relating to the teaching of children with learning difficulties. Bruce Wicking established the Currajong School in 1974, and was committed to the provision of programs which catered for the individual needs of children with learning difficulties. The funds for this award are provided through the generosity of the Wicking family and their friends to commemorate the life and work of Bruce Wicking. The Tertiary Student Award The LDA Tertiary Student Award is by application, and is presented in recognition of significant research which advances the understanding of theoretical and practical issues in the field of learning difficulties, carried out by a student in the course of their tertiary level studies. The Award is based on the submission of a research article to LDA, which will be considered for publication in the Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties. Further information regarding the Awards and nomination procedures are provided on the LDA website, at www.ldaustralia.org DECEMBER 2011 BULLETIN
6 Guessing words from context is not reading This paper is an edited version of Fay s presentation on the acceptance of her Bruce Wicking Award at the LDA AGM in Melbourne on 15 October 2011. Fay Tran Whole Language has been the dominant method of teaching reading for more than 20 years, in spite of overwhelming evidence that direct instruction of phonics and other decoding skills is the method that ensures that all children learn to read well. The method is based on the belief that children can learn literacy skills the same way that they learn language, through plenty of exposure and interaction. The main feature of Whole Language, encouragement to guess words from context rather than use phonics skills to decode them, is also the main reason why the method has failed so many children. Since Whole Language invaded early primary classrooms, at least half of my work as a learning support teacher was rescuing children who came from other schools with already established reading failure. Without exception, regardless of underlying learning difficulties, these children responded to direct instruction and practice in phonics skills and spelling rules, starting right from the basic level. Reminding a child to sound out a new word rather than guess from context is a very simple way of making a huge difference to the development of their reading and spelling. While it was very rewarding to put these children back on track and know that their futures would no longer be limited by illiteracy, I became increasingly concerned that what was happening at our school was quite unusual and that thousands of children across the country were being deprived of the opportunity to develop literacy skills. The problem is that children who don t develop efficient literacy skills at school are not just disadvantaged but are seriously traumatised and often damaged for life, and this starts very early on. Let s not beat about the bush here. Functional literacy is absolutely essential in today s society, and without it, people are at serious risk of a dismal future. If you don t believe me, ask a social worker. Even the child who falls behind his friends by the end of the first year develops negative attitudes to his or her learning ability. By the third year, children who are struggling to read are likely to have written themselves off academically. These children develop either avoidance strategies, where they work so slowly that they never complete tasks, or behave in a disruptive manner so that the teacher focuses on their behaviour rather than their learning problems. Some manage to conceal their problems by copying friends work and learning their take-home readers by heart. Amazingly many of the children who enrolled at my school with significant reading and spelling problems came with reports showing at least average performance, with no hint of difficulties. But their mums knew. Other parents told me that their children s teachers had told them not to worry as the problems were transitory and would eventually go away. Nothing could be further from the truth, as learning difficulties do not just go away. Children with learning difficulties need good teaching, involving direct and systematic instruction in the basic skills. This situation is unfathomable in our wealthy, educated and technologically advanced country. I simply do not understand why every primary school cannot teach every child to read and spell to a functional level in seven years of attendance. We knew how to teach literacy skills back when I first trained about 50 years ago, and now we have the evidence from neuroscience to validate the direct instruction of phonics skills and spelling patterns that worked then, and still work today, given the chance. There are three questions to be answered. Firstly, why did the Whole Language method become so powerful that it took over the teaching of reading in almost every school and teacher training department in Australia, the US, England and even France? Secondly, why was it so disastrous for so many children? Thirdly, why did many children learn to read in spite of Whole Language? I will try to answer the first and third questions before addressing the second in more detail. The answer to the first question, why did the Whole Language method become so powerful, is a mystery to me. I know that careers were built on introducing the method, fortunes were made by book publishers, but I can t believe that those who promoted Whole Language knew the damage it would do to all the children who failed to learn to read because they weren t taught how to do it. Of course it is possible that they didn t know the method was failing, because at around the same time as it was introduced, formal and standardised testing of literacy was also virtually banned, just like phonics. So until the AIM and NAPLAN testing was introduced by government, even the schools were not aware of the reading standards or problems of their children. It is also possible that schools BULLETIN DECEMBER 2011
7 assumed that Reading Recovery would rescue any children who fell behind, but we now know that that didn t work either, because it was based on the same methodology. But I knew there were serious problems and so did many parents, tutors and academics in the learning difficulties area. Throughout all those years, university cognitive psychologists and learning difficulties experts and organisations around the world were saying that there was overwhelming evidence that phonics and direct instruction was the method that worked best, and in fact was essential for most children. Somehow, the message didn t get through to the curriculum decision-makers and teacher trainers. Maybe the possibility that they were all wrong was too much to even consider. Now we have the knowledge, small classes, teacher aids and technology to ensure that every child learns to read and write. If the Whole Language disaster hadn t come along at the wrong moment in time, I am sure that we would be now attaining that goal. The answer to the third question, why did many children still manage to learn to read, has become clearer recently, mainly through responses to my book. Of course many children did what the Whole Language method requires them to do. They figured out how to read by themselves, and developed the required decoding skills without help from their teachers. A few schools continued to teach phonics skills and gradually a few more, like Bellfield Primary School under John Fleming, joined the rebels. Some teachers, especially in my age group or a bit younger, have confided that they continued to teach phonics behind closed doors and even whispered the banned words sound it out in their student s ears. Speech therapists continued to teach phonemic awareness and many added direct instruction in phonics to their treatments. SPELD, LDA and other private tutors rescued many students, and still more were taught the essential skills by their parents and grandparents. One father told me that he listened to his child s teacher explain how she intended to teach his child to read, and he bluntly told her that that was not how his child was going to learn and made sure that his child learnt his phonics skills at home. Another child, now a successful accountant, was taken away by his grandmother for the school holidays and was drilled phonics (his words) every day for six weeks. The answer to the second question, why it was all such a disaster, is now clear to me. Here is my theory. Guessing words from context is not reading. Furthermore, training children to guess from context after noticing just the first letter of a word is not teaching them to read at all. In fact it actually prevents children from developing the skills they need to become accurate and fluent readers. Even if they are introduced to phonics incidentally, they are taught to use this knowledge only as a last resort, if guessing from context does not help. This is why so many children that I have had to teach over the years have had Why did the Whole Language method become so powerful that it took over teaching of reading in almost every school and teacher training department in Australia, the US, and the UK... and why was it so disastrous for so many children? no underlying learning difficulty, and have responded quickly to instruction and practice in basic reading skills. When a child reads a word by sounding it out, he or she can be pretty sure that the decision is correct. Some words are not easy to determine even when sounded out, but most of these are the high frequency words that are quickly learnt in the first year of school. I have no quarrel with children using context to help when sounding out a words like pour (p-o-u-r), or once. It is fine for children to use context to facilitate their decoding skills. However if the word is guessed from the first letter only, then there is no way of knowing if it is actually correct or not. D-o-g can t be anything else than dog regardless of the context, but reading dog for dogs can change the whole meaning of the sentence without the reader being aware of the error. Mandy is a Year 2 student that I am helping with reading and spelling. The other day she argued with me about the Continued on page 8... DECEMBER 2011 BULLETIN
8... continued from page 7 word tent in her Fitzroy reader. She is quite capable of sounding the word out but she said it had to be trunk or stump because there was no tent in the picture and there was an old tree. Even when I insisted that she sound the word out and she conceded that it did sound like tent, she wasn t happy and blamed the book for confusing her. If not checked at every word, Mandy will confidently and fluently read a sentence with more than half the words and the entire meaning incorrect. It is very hard to replace faulty strategies with more effective ones, especially when you only have the children for one hour a week. Having unknowingly read one word incorrectly, the child is likely to make further mistakes to maintain the meaning of the sentence. Wally is a boy in Year 3 who came to me at the beginning of the year barely reading at all, because he had not been taught decoding skills by any of his three previous class teachers. He is now reading at about Year 2 level and his skills are developing. The other day, he was reading a sentence that started with They could but read The colour. This illustrates how one mistake leads to another, which happens all the time with guessers. By just glancing at the first letter or two of the first word, he read The for They and this lead to him reading could as colour, even though he was able to read both They and could as soon as I asked him to have another look at each word. Another problem that I see involves memory and the learning process. The aim of reading practice is to develop accuracy and fluency. This involves using decoding skills with increasing speed and efficiency, but also involves the quick recall of known words and parts of words from memory. Every time a word is sounded out or synthesised from its syllables or phonograms, it is actively processed by the brain and thus likely to be stored in memory for future recall. This cannot happen when a word is guessed, because there is nothing to remember except perhaps the first letter and the sentence it occurred in. No useful learning occurs. We know that focused attention is vital for learning to take place, but if the child s attention is focused on predicting what the next word might be and not on the structure of each word, his or her skills are not advanced by the experience. Again, no useful learning occurs. It is good that the high frequency words, like was and where, which are often difficult to sound out, are being directly taught in most, if not all, beginners classes. All the Prep/Kindergarten children I know bring home lists of these magic or golden words to practise. The danger is that if this whole word reading is the only strategy apart from guessing that is taught, some children rely on it too much. They appear to thrive at first but lose momentum and then fail around Year 3 when the memory load becomes too great. Often it is the bright child with a good visual memory that has this problem. When masses of little books replaced the use of graded readers I was not overly concerned. I knew that children with learning difficulties needed controlled vocabulary books to provide them with the systematic practice of sight words and phonics skills and continued to use them for my students. I did not realise the harm that the books could do, if they used predictive text, as they mostly do now, which train the children to use the title of the book and the pictures to guess the words. Lucy is a little girl in Year 1 with attention and memory difficulties. She learnt almost nothing in her first year at school, but is making at least normal progress working with me twice a week. She is now able to read the first two sets of the Fitzroy readers and can read and write just about any phonetically regular one syllable word. Occasionally she asks me to listen to her read her school take-home reader, which she reads fluently without more than a glance at each page. But this is not reading! Lucy thinks she is reading and no doubt her teacher does too, but I know that most of the words in that book could not be read in isolation, whereas any word she reads in the Fitzroy readers can be read anywhere it occurs. I have no quarrel with short books with uncontrolled or natural language for children to read, as long as they have the decoding skills to read them. The Spalding method recommends children read books with uncontrolled vocabulary, but not until they know enough phonics and decoding rules to read virtually any word. With the little books now available from Dandelion Readers and those from SPELD-SA, children can start reading real books, even when they only know a few letter sounds. Graded decodable books provide systematic practice of developing skills and can also provide practice of the high frequency words like said and they, which must be recognised automatically. The problem with the proliferation of predictive text books now is that they encourage the dreaded guessing. They fool both the child and his or her teacher that he or she is actually reading, when the child is just guessing from the pictures and context. This may explain why so many children manage to hide their difficulties until the NAPLAN test in Year 3. A further issue I have with the Whole Language method is the emphasis, right from the beginning, on fluency rather than accuracy. In my experience, fluency comes naturally when word recognition and decoding skills are automatic. Children can develop fluency by reading very easy books, or by repeated reading of the occasional page of a more challenging book. To encourage fluency, Whole Language teachers have been taught not to interrupt a child s reading to correct errors, but to wait until the end of the sentence or paragraph and then discuss one or two, but not more, of the errors made. In contrast, I find that a very important aspect of effective teaching of reading is to provide instant BULLETIN DECEMBER 2011
9 feedback, which enables a child to quickly correct his errors as they occur. I do this by pointing above each word, stopping when an error is made. The feedback provides a second chance for the child to decode or recall the word from memory, while the word is still in the short-term memory stage. Learning takes place because the child has recalled or decoded the word correctly and is likely to remember this experience for future reading. If the feedback is not provided until later, or not at all, then incorrect information is likely to be stored in memory, which once again, interferes with learning. Whole Language reading is supposed to put the emphasis on reading for meaning, but it is probable that reading comprehension is compromised by the concentration on guessing from context at the word level. Reading with 100 per cent accuracy, even if it is slow, ensures better comprehension than reading riddled with mistakes. Even one mistake, like reading can for can t can change the meaning of a sentence without any clue from the context that a mistake has been made. One or two mistakes in a sentence, compounded by more in following sentences, can indicate that the meaning the child gleans from the text is quite different from the meaning intended by the author. On the other hand, when reading by automatic phonics and word recognition skills, the brain is freed to consider the meaning of the text as a separate task. Whole Language came from the academic discipline of psycholinguistics, and while it is a fine way to develop oral language skills, I believe it should never have crossed the line into written language. I was heartened in 2009 by Julia Gillard s announcement, when she was the Minister for Education, that the teaching of phonics for reading would be included in the national curriculum. Great! I thought. That will help so many children. I have also been pleased to hear of schools introducing phonics programs in the early years for spelling programs. However, when it comes to using phonics skills for reading, it does seem that the necessary revolution is not yet happening. Children are still being taught to use guessing from context as a first strategy, reinforced by the predictive text readers that all children take home every day. I was disappointed and concerned to read that the national curriculum, describing reading skill in the first year of school, refers to decoding words using context, grammar and phonics. This must be a mistake. Surely the word phonics should be first. I feel that we are at a crossroads right now, with the implementation of the national curriculum starting and schools everywhere deciding how they will respond to it. I know that it is only because LDA and SPELD have been working for years to get phonics back into the curriculum that it is there at all, but I fear that the optimism I felt when the national curriculum details were first announced, will be replaced with disappointment if the Whole Language method continues to be included in the early reading curriculum. Maybe now is the time to say enough is enough. Enough children have suffered from literacy failure; enough teachers have suffered the frustration of not being able to teach in a way that ensures success; enough parents have suffered the trauma of watching their children disintegrate. The Whole Language method of teaching reading did not work because of faulty methodology. It is now time to acknowledge this and move on to the task of re-educating teachers and saving our children from literacy failure. Fay Tran is an LDA Consultant and former Learning Support Teacher at Geelong Grammar, and the author of the book Teaching Kids to Read, published in 2010. Email: fay. tran@microwavepower.com.au or fay.tran7@gmail.com. The National Year of Reading 2012 The National Year of Reading is a collaborative project joining public libraries, government, community groups, the media, publishers, educators, and other groups concerned to promote reading and literacy for all. It is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It s about supporting reading initiatives while respecting the oral tradition of storytelling. It s about helping people discover and rediscover the magic of books. And most of all, it s about Australians becoming a nation of readers. LDA is a partner of the National Year of Reading, and fully supports the aims of this important initiative. See LDA s listing as a partner of the National Year of Reading at www.love2read.org. au/partners.cfm. For further information on the National Year of Reading, see www. love2read.org.au/about-us.cfm. DECEMBER 2011 BULLETIN
10 Read All About It Jo-Anne Dooner Teachers, principals and academics alike are eagerly reading the new draft national English curriculum, a document that makes it clear that reading involves much more than simply sounding out letters or words, and is much harder to master. Over the past decade alone, governments in the United States, Britain and Australia have all commissioned major reviews in order to establish the best approach to implement literacy programs in early childhood education. All have independently come to the same central conclusion that the early stages of teaching reading and spelling must include a synthetic phonics approach often called systematic or explicit phonics in Australia. As the draft national English curriculum recognises, though, learning to read must take a balanced approach that encompasses phonemic awareness, synthetic phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Exactly how best to teach reading and spelling is still not entirely agreed upon, partly because English spelling is pretty complicated. Another problem is that, while our brains are programmed to learn spoken language, they re not hardwired to learn to read. We re not born with a reading gene, but our neural pathways have been able to re-wire in such a way that allows reading to be learned. This is why we need strategies for teaching that respect the technical difficulties of reading and spelling in English. The fastest, most effective and most inclusive strategies avoid the unnecessary underperformance and failure of many of our children, and are based on systematic synthetic phonics. A further problem is that some teaching has emphasised the importance of children getting the right answer, rather than the development of underlying reading skills, which can lead to guessing and an overreliance on illustrations. Traditionally, the teaching of reading has focused on the letter, often alongside its name; but with only 26 letters and 44 sounds to be represented there are just not enough letters to go around. This leads to complexities that puzzle many children, such as the letter c starting words such as cat, chop, Christmas, ceiling, let alone of its use in words such as social. George Bernard Shaw once challenged his audience to read the word ghoti. In response to their immediate bafflement, he pronounced it fish with gh as in cough, o as in women and ti as in initial. Shaw s demonstration shows that English is a difficult written language indeed, and not one that is easily caught without being taught. Yes, this is the reason behind the renewal of interest in explicit teaching. The fact is, though, that English is nowhere near as random or difficult as you might think, epsecially when you re taught how it works and given lots of time and feedback to get it. Other countries with a more straightforward orthography such as Italy where, by and large, their 21 letters can easily accommodate the 26 sounds of Italian, have a drastically lower level of national reading failure. Such is the straightforwardness of the Italian system that their word for writing is the same as their word for spelling! If only we could have it so simple. Back in the English-speaking world, many children do crack the code for themselves, but the unfortunate fact is that we also leave far too many behind. As the draft national English curriculum states, English learning for early reading and writing must include, phonological knowledge and phonemic awareness, sound-letter correspondences, and using syntactic and semantic cues to make meaning. Let me tease that out in terms of phonemic awareness; phonic knowledge; vocabulary knowledge; reading fluency and reading comprehension. Phonemic awareness and phonics Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, focus on and manipulate phonemes or sounds in spoken words. It has been found that having good phonemic awareness is the best indicator of future success in learning to read. Synthetic phonics starts from the basis that there are 44 sounds used in the English language, and that these are all taught in an explicit fashion. Synthetic phonics teach children that each of the 44 phonemes can be represented by letters, or combinations of letters or graphemes. It allows children to master the phonic code, from the very simple to the more complex, in a systematic way. This step-by-step method of teaching, with each stage building on and reinforcing the previous stage, really gets results. In the Get Reading Right program, for example, the sequence of the first eight sounds s, m, c, t, g, p, a, and o are taught together over four to six weeks. This is much faster than other approaches that can take a sound a week even though what is actually meant is a letter a week. Putting these sounds together is called blending or synthesising and produces over 40 words; not bad for a child s first few weeks at school. You can also imagine the confidence levels that come from this level of progress. The first 30 sounds can be taught in about 20 weeks, in some cases even faster. Synthetic phonics aims for zero reading failure. From day one, lesson one, struggling children are identified and given small amounts of attention, so that no one in the class should be left struggling before the class moves on to the next unit. The idea is that the first wave of teaching is as effective as possible, rather than relying on literacy support to pick up the pieces over the years to come. Studies in Scotland show that the benefits of synthetic phonics are more widespread than with other approaches and have even shown boys to be ahead of the girls in a number of areas. The benefits of the approach have been shown to persist through to secondary school, almost seven years later. A particular emphasis from some phonics programs has been to target fluency, or automaticity, at each level with a fast read of the target words looking for cat not c-a-t. This frees up working memory capacity, making the next stage easier to learn and also assists in improving comprehension. The easier the decoding process is for the child, the more working memory left for comprehension. BULLETIN DECEMBER 2011
11 Synthetic phonics theory recognises the limitations of an over reliance on visual memory approaches, and so reduces demands on memory to a minimum. Children need learn by sight only a small number of irregular high frequency words that are essential for their writing and that, at their stage of reading development, can t yet be decoded. The first half a dozen are I, was, are, the, to, and she. Such an approach clearly delineates the decodable from the non-decodable in the early stages, thus helping the child to adopt a blending and segmentation approach as their default strategy, which can quickly become automatic. Phonic knowledge Once a child can hear phonemes in a word, he or she needs to learn that we can assign a letter to represent each phoneme. For example, to read the word cat, the child has to recognise that the c represents the phoneme /c/, the a, /a/ and the t, /t/; then blend or glue each of these together to read the word cat. Similarly to spell the word, cat, the child needs to be able to break the word cat into each of the three phonemes, and then choose a letter to represent each one, thereby spelling the cat. Vocabulary knowledge Our children are living today in a society where they are more likely to have mastered the internet before they are required to even start Kindergarten. Communication takes so many non-vocal forms that we sometimes forget to use words and simply talk. The result? Word poverty, or an underdeveloped vocabulary. We teachers can do a lot to enrich the vocabulary of children simply by reading to our students more, and encouraging parents to read to their children. The more we read, the better our vocabulary. Add the convoluted spellings of the English language, and we find that more and more children and adults underperform in writing because they can t spell the words they d like to use, and so write the bare minimum. Reading fluency Reading fluency is only one of the several critical factors necessary for good reading comprehension. When children read out loud with speed, accuracy and expression, they re more likely to comprehend and remember the content than if they read with difficulty. Being a fluent reader leaves a child with enough working memory to attend to comprehension. Comprehension Reading comprehension is the ability to get the meaning and the messages from text. We use our background knowledge and vocabulary knowledge to create sensory images and then to understand what is read. It s the creation of sensory or visual images that make reading so much fun. Very good comprehension allows a child to take meaning from the text and transform it into something different, something their own. Without good comprehension, all learning, in all subjects, is affected. What are schools doing? There is a small but growing number of schools whose goal is zero failure; they have had to challenge accepted ways of teaching and have adopted synthetic phonics enthusiastically as their approach to the early teaching of reading and spelling. In late 2007, Blaxcell Street Public School, Sydney, implemented synthetic phonics across the whole school. In an area where 98 per cent of children were from a language background other than English, teaching reading and spelling is a huge challenge, with 52 per cent of pupils facing reading difficulties. With just two days of literacy training on the theory of synthetic phonics and the practicalities of its implementation, the staff of Blaxcell Street initiated synthetic phonics lessons across the school for just half an hour per day. In just four months the previous figures of 52 per cent were reduced to 12 percent. The staff now aim to push this figure even lower. Hani Zahra, Blaxcell Street deputy principal, explains how staff also used some simple approaches to address vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency and reading comprehension. Classroom teachers read to their classes every day, increased vocabulary through rich talking and listening activities, and initiated an explicitly, systematic comprehensions program. The aim, says Zahra, is to support all children in achieving success. Killara Public School in the north shore of Sydney also implemented the same programme in the middle of 2008. In one term we were able to see real differences, says Killara Public School principal Kathy Rembisz. Our Kindergarten students can now make words independently, can identify sounds anywhere within a word and are reading and writing much more challenging words. Our Year 1 children have taken off and we re seeing a great improvement in all aspects of literacy. The good news for teachers is that you can give your students the types of early learning experiences that ensure reading development, in ways that they also find enjoyable and entertaining. I am looking forward to seeing the roll-out of the new national curriculum for English because, if its current draft form remains largely intact, it will help our schools to implement a synthetic phonics approach. This approach is a simple, scientifically proven way to teach every child to read and spell. References Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. (2010). Australian Curriculum Information Sheet English. Sydney: ACARA. Available at www.acara.edu.au/verve/_resources/ English.pdf. This article was first published in Teacher, Australia s award-winning national monthly education magazine for educators across all state, Catholic and independent schools. Reproduced with kind permission. Subscribe by visiting http://teacher.acer.edu.au. Jo-Anne Dooner is a literacy trainer, primary school vice principal and author of Get Reading Right s literacy program. Send comments to jdooner@getreadingright.com.au or via www.getreadingright.com.au. DECEMBER 2011 BULLETIN