Submissions 1-20
Next - Submissions 21-40 >>
Submission Number
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Author
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1 |
Mr L J Bridge, TAS
This submission claims that the standard of reading and education has
been falling for at least fifty years. This is attributed to a number of
factors: the introduction of the open plan classroom where children sit in
groups (which leads to distraction and poor discipline); a reduction in
examinations; a reduction in visits from school inspectors (which removes
accountability from teachers); and the fact that Latin roots (which provided
a basic meaning to words encountered for the first time) are no longer
taught. This submission recommends that we should go back to the proven
methods.
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2 |
Ms Janet Roberts, Learning Pathways, VIC
This submission is organised around the following points: the teaching
of listening skills as a significant first step in learning to read;
children should be thoroughly taught the elements of words (eg. the sounds
of letters); children must be encouraged to work out an unknown word by
using structure first (eg. sounding out the parts); prediction should be the
back-up strategy, not the initial one; the use of formal readers could be
delayed until children are more familiar with the basic skills; the relevant
commonly used words need to be consolidated thoroughly; direct teaching is
necessary for the majority of learners; many children need more guided
practice than they currently get; skills-based learning should be supported
by the other many interesting and stimulating activities currently seen in
today’s primary classrooms; and teachers in training (and probably their
lecturers) need to be taught this truly holistic, efficient method. The
writer is an experienced primary and secondary teacher now specialising in
tutoring students with learning difficulties and providing professional
development for schools. She is the author of Now I can spell and read
better, too (2003).
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3 |
Ms Cathie Hutchinson, VIC
This submission recommends that the focus of debate should shift from
the whole language versus phonics issue, since both methods have always been
used, to the relationship between reading failure and learning disabilities.
This submission says that teachers and the medical profession lack training
in the diagnosis of children’s learning disabilities, and that since support
for children with learning disabilities may involve teachers, doctors,
speech therapists, occupational therapists and physiotherapists, as well as
psychologists, each profession needs to have an understanding of what the
other professions might be able to offer. The writer is an experienced
primary school teacher.
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4 |
Mrs Gail Hughes, QLD
The submission draws the Inquiry’s attention to a significant US report,
titled Report of the National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: an
evidence-based assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading,
and its implications for Reading Instruction, which was based on a
comprehensive review of the existing research relating to the teaching of
reading.
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5 |
Withdrawn
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6 |
Mrs Karolyn Bromwell, WA
This submission draws on the writer’s experience as a mother of two
children and urges the use of phonics rather than the whole-word reading
method in Australian primary schools. According to this submission, the
phonics method teaches children to correctly sound out words and how
different letters are put together make different sounds. This submission
says that the phonics method helps children to understand words that they do
not know and is an integral part of learning to read.
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7 |
Friends of Libraries Australia
The focus of this submission is the Bookstart program which aims to
provide all babies, via their parents and caregivers, with a free kit
containing: a quality book; information on the critical importance of
developing the literacy of children by reading to them as babies; and
information on library membership and story times. This submission says that
the implementation of the Bookstart program in Australia would provide a key
role for public libraries and early childhood health agencies as part of
Australia’s national literacy plan. The results of a survey of about 27 per
cent of the public library services in Australia are included in this
submission.
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8 |
Mr Christopher Nugent, VIC
This submission is in the form of a paper titled Planned illiteracy
in Australia: the evidence, that uses the following headings: Australian
Curricula oppose the teaching of basic skills; The eradication of read aloud
skills; The eradication of spelling and the alphabetic code; Literacy
curriculum absurdity in 77% of Australian schools; The Official sequence of
events; Year by Year timelines in curriculum enforcement; Outcomes Based
education: its total uselessness; Whole Language: discriminates against
males; Whole Language: Discriminates against the literacy impaired; Whole
Language: A $662 Million wipe out in Victoria; Whole Language: Reading
Recovery a global failure; Whole Language: The lie behind its slogans;
Something desperately sad; and Something Sadder still; Unelected Authority
must be controlled by our ministers; For Teachers who need useful curriculum
help today.
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9 |
Mr Timothy Mirabella, VIC
This submission says that its objective is to strenuously urge the
Australian Government to shift the initial focus of primary school
curriculum away from the premature teaching of literacy, with its disastrous
consequences, to the promotion of children’s developmental readiness for
reading. It puts the case that even if all of the seriously underachieving
children in our schools were to be exposed daily to the very best teaching
practices of the very best teachers they would still not achieve desirable
states of literacy. This will always be the case as long as there is no
provision made for teachers to assist children in overcoming
learning-inhibiting developmental immaturity. Mr Mirabella is a former
primary school teacher and principal, and was 1981 Victorian Teacher of the
Year.
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10 |
Mrs Maris E Sayer, NSW
This submission outlines the writer’s experiences and investigations of
literacy learning programs in Adelaide and Canberra. The writer uses both
phonic and whole language approaches as necessary to accelerate literacy
learning, and the most successful program she has used is Jolly Phonics,
a multisensory program which caters for all learning styles and is designed
for children from Kindergarten to Year 2.
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11 |
Mr Christopher Nugent, VIC
This submission is a follow up to Submission 8, and discusses
definitions of literacy and the role of the public service in literacy
education in Australia. It proposes a number of solutions to the problems of
literacy teaching in Australia.
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12 |
Mr Alan Marshall, NSW
This submission says that the current debate about reading instruction
methods would benefit from a historical perspective. The writer argues that
this debate was settled in ancient times and that the phonics method of
instruction has been world’s best practice for millennia. According to this
submission, the current defence that a variety of methods are employed, is
code for the status quo and must be rejected. This submission says that the
phonics method alone must be mandated and that many children have been
disadvantaged by the whole-word approach.
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13 |
Confidential
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14 |
Mrs Maureen Pollard, VIC
This submission argues that it is not appropriate to teach children
Victorian Cursive Handwriting just as they are only beginning to develop
their fine motor skills beyond drawing large circles and squiggles. The
author is concerned that this style of writing is too unfamiliar and that
printing should be mastered first. Other issues raised are: that research
indicates that phonics should be a vital part of teaching literacy and of
university teaching courses; and that the Reading Recovery program is too
narrow in its focus and the program name is too negative.
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15 |
Dr Kerry Hempenstall, VIC
This submission comments that in stark contrast to many other
professions, the education profession does not appear to have a culture of
professional development through being in touch with research. It observes
that while teachers are generally open to learning about current knowledge,
their training has not equipped them well to assess research and research
findings. The submission also discusses the effects of current practice on
three dissimilar students, and concludes that if the best available
practices were being emphasised in our school system, reading problems could
be significantly reduced. Dr Hempenstall is an educational psychologist with
a strong and long standing interest in literacy.
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16 |
Professor Derek Wooley, VIC
This submission refers to a booklet titled Progress in Reading, 1956,
which is a comparative study of success and error in children taught by
different methods. The major conclusion of this booklet is that a group of
children taught for a year by the phonics method was definitely superior in
word-recognition to a group of children taught for one year by mixed
methods.
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17 |
Mr Wilf Sprengel, NSW
This submission says that to teach well teachers must have a thorough
knowledge of teaching methods, including the teaching of decoding skills to
children. This submission says that here is a need for a set of National
Readers so that there is uniformity for the many children who transfer from
state to state each year. It also says that reading should be the first
lesson of the day, as this is the most important subject for primary school
pupils.
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18 |
Name Not Made Public
This submission says that the NSW spiral learning programs, which
reinforce material already taught, should replace the block learning
programs used in schools in Queensland because in the block learning
programs students do little or no revision. The submission’s author reports
good results teaching his children phonics after unsuccessful efforts to
persuade his son’s school to use these methods.
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19 |
Mr Byron Harrison, VAS Research Pty Ltd, TAS
This submission presents an analysis of the basic skills of 3000
children who were examined by VAS Research’s optometric wing in Tasmania. On
the basis of these data, the author concludes that many infants have
insufficient visual memory for the word-guessing strategies that are central
to whole-language practises. This submission recommends a return to the
traditional phonics-first emphasis during infant grades. It also recommends
that a national newsletter be regularly delivered to every teacher, to
provide them with information about current research and foster
science-based debate. This submission supports greater use of standardised
and diagnostic testing tools being made available to principals, schools and
teachers, and that the overall teaching of literacy needs to become more
science-based. National analysis of literacy skills data should be the
responsibility of a federal inspectorate funded to carry out independent
research, provide teacher training and develop resources.
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20 |
Ms Sarah Jefferson, WA
This submission notes that literacy underpins the whole curriculum and
says that students should be instructed in an element of literacy at the
start of each lesson. The author of this submission conducted three literacy
summer schools in the UK, and believes that the success of these programs
was due to the high teacher to pupil ratio. This submission also suggests
that diagnostic testing should be done at the start of every school year.
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