My goal with the Fellowship was to research and identify effective language and literacy screening and classroom reading intervention practices from schools around the world, for at-risk students so that these can be disseminated to teachers in primary and secondary schools and those in teacher training.
Read the report: Jessica Colleu Terradas – Churchill Trust
Social media:
- Talking about instructional coaching and explicit instruction at Mons University : Episode 9
- Talking about my Churchill Fellowship experience: information session
- Listen to the Podcast episode, being interviewed by Mr Lee about my Churchill experience.
- JCT Churchill Fellowship – Literacy Project Facebook page
- The Canberra Times article “Australian federal, state and territory governments should do more to prevent reading failure” https://lnkd.in/g2cY2u2v.
Forty per cent of 15-year-old Australian students are unable to read at a proficient level, and average performance in reading has been steadily declining (PISA, 2018). I argue that Australian governments and education departments currently use a wait-to-fail approach, which means that many children and young people are flagged by the school system only after they have repeatedly failed to learn to read over a prolonged period of time, often years.
And this is detrimental to young people lives. Imagine if you were to fail at your first job: learning to read!
The best approach is not to wait until students struggle or fail. The best approach is to identify students earlier, those who are likely to struggle in learning to read or those who have fallen behind. I believe a diagnostic and responsive teaching approach is the best way forward for a healthy educational system that promotes more equitable outcomes.
My report is calling for Australian governments and education departments at all levels to do much more to:
1) Increase monitoring and accountability for poor reading outcomes with the use of a universal literacy screener in the early years of schooling to reduce the number of children who reach Year 3 without their reading difficulties being identified or addressed.
2) Catch students before they fail with the implementation of a multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) framework in both primary and secondary schools.
3) Invest in teaching effectiveness and promote education reforms that bring effective reading instruction into every classroom so fewer students need intervention.
