Parent’s Sounded Out on Reading Problems
A Newspaper Article published in the Herald Sun-Melbourne 15.4.08 and written by Blanche Clarke illustrated the situation for struggling readers in some Melbourne schools.
Two literacy experts:
RMIT University’s Kerry Hempenstall and Macquarie University’s Kevin Wheldall said it was common for parents of low progress readers to be told their children would “get it” and not to worry.
Professor Hempenstall said many teachers believed that literacy progress was dependent on a child’s maturity. He said, “nine out of ten kids who don’t start well never catch up”
He studied the literacy skills of 206 struggling readers in years 3 and 6 at 10 schools in Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs.
Students who were given a 65 lesson synthetic phonics program (corrective reading) had strong gains in decoding, spelling and phonological skills.
Students who did not receive this tuition and remained with their normal English program showed only modest changes in their skill development.
In 2005 - The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy promoted an early and systematic emphasis on the explicit teaching of phonics
http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/report.htm
Prof Wheldall says:
25-30% of children will pick up learning to read with little instruction, “probably in spite of what teachers do”
RMIT University’s Kerry Hempenstall and Macquarie University’s Kevin Wheldall said it was common for parents of low progress readers to be told their children would “get it” and not to worry.
Professor Hempenstall said many teachers believed that literacy progress was dependent on a child’s maturity. He said, “nine out of ten kids who don’t start well never catch up”
He studied the literacy skills of 206 struggling readers in years 3 and 6 at 10 schools in Melbourne’s northern and western suburbs.
Students who did not receive this tuition and remained with their normal English program showed only modest changes in their skill development.
In 2005 - The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy promoted an early and systematic emphasis on the explicit teaching of phonics
http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/report.htm
25-30% of children will pick up learning to read with little instruction, “probably in spite of what teachers do”
50% of children will learn to read within the classroom.
25% of children who we sometimes call dyslexic and who haven’t had the preparatory work in their pre-school years struggle.
I have taught students in all groups. Many intelligent students with excellent backgrounds have been in the last group.
I believe they are there for a number of reasons.
· We should check out their phonemic awareness and decoding skills.
· Most students who struggle with reading, lack the necessary body of phonics knowledge for reading success.
· Reading and writing have fundamental decoding skills that need to be mastered before reading for meaning and higher order skills develop.