Curriculum takes backward step on the path to literacy
By Jennifer Buckingham
In the same week that federal education minister Alan Tudge reiterated his aspiration to take Australia back to the top of the international school education rankings, pointing to improved results in the United Kingdom and Poland for inspiration, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) has drawn its inspiration from elsewhere and released a proposed revision of the Australian Curriculum that doesn’t seem likely to move Australian schools in the desired direction of travel.
Education needs to be informed by evidence
Innovation is always on the agenda in education but the COVID pandemic in 2020 made it a top priority. Many schools made a swift and more or less successful transition to online teaching. The schools that did this most successfully were largely those that were already high functioning schools, with strong collaborative teaching cultures and robust systems in place. The widespread adoption of technology for teaching was not a ‘disruptive’ force that changed the traditional stratifications in education systems.
This means that while much of the innovation during the COVID crisis was born out of the urgency to do something rather than nothing, over the longer term we need to think about innovation in a more analytical way. Most importantly, we must draw a distinction between innovation and experimentation. Not all seemingly bright ideas are good ideas – open plan classrooms and seating arrangements where students can’t see the teacher come to mind.
Education still needs to be evidence informed. Innovation is not an excuse to disregard everything we know about effective teaching and learning. Otherwise, doing something is not better than doing nothing.
Print-to-Speech vs. Speech-to-Print: What these terms mean and why we need both when teaching reading
Two sides of a single coin – speech-to-print, print-to-speech – let’s not devalue the currency.
By Anna Desjardins
In the world of reading instruction, the terms print-to-speech and speech-to-print have become confusing and unnecessarily divisive. This is because they have been used to categorise both the composite skills required for competent reading and spelling, and whole frameworks within which these composite skills can be taught.
When referring to the composite skills involved in spelling and reading (at the word level):
- Print-to-speech skills are those required for decoding. To read words, graphemes (letters and letter combinations) must be translated into speech sounds, then blended together to produce spoken words in our vocabulary.
- Speech-to-print skills are those required for encoding. To write words, spoken words must be segmented into speech sounds and these sounds must then be translated into graphemes.
Both of these skills rely on a knowledge of phonics (how speech sounds correspond to graphemes) and, consequently, phonics instruction is one of the crucial elements required in any comprehensive approach to teaching literacy (alongside explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension).
So far, so good. We know children need to be able to translate from print-to-speech when reading, and from speech-to-print when writing. We can help them develop these skills by teaching them phonics. However, now we hit a snag, because phonics can be taught in different ways and, unhelpfully, a dichotomy has developed between phonics instruction categorised as ‘print-to-speech’ versus instruction categorised as ‘speech-to-print’.
What do these labels mean in the context of instruction? Given the definitions above, you could be forgiven for thinking that in one approach children are taught only how to decode or read, while in the other they are taught only how to encode or spell. But this is not what is intended.
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Year 1 Phonics Check
The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check was introduced in all English primary schools in 2012. Since then, there have been substantial improvements in Year 1 and 2 students’ decoding skills as measured by the Check, and promising signs of improvement in standardised reading assessments in later years.
After several years of sometimes vigorous debate and consistent evidence-based advocacy from researchers, educators, and parent groups, the Year 1 Phonics Check is beginning to be adopted around Australia.
- It has been implemented in South Australian primary schools each year since 2018
- More than 500 primary schools have joined a voluntary trial in NSW in August 2020
- An online version has been provided to all schools by the federal government in August 2020
It should go without saying (but apparently still needs to be said) that phonics instruction is one element of an effective reading instruction program, albeit an essential one. Students also need comprehensive instruction in the language and meaning aspects of literacy. It should also be self-evident that, just like any other assessment, the stated benefits of the check derive from the judicious use of the data to inform improvements in teaching practices.
The message about the educational value of the Year 1 Phonics Check is reaching policy makers, schools, and the wider community. Below is a selection of articles and reports that provide accurate information about the Year 1 Phonics Check — what it is and isn’t, why it was developed, and what evidence exists of its benefits for students and teachers.