As part of my course work for Literacy & Numeracy this week I have been reading a report on Teaching Reading by the Australian Government, Department of Education, Science and Training. (2005, December).
One quite alarming statistic quoted in the report, from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 1997 was that 20% of Australians between the ages of 15 to 74 had 'very poor' lilteracy schools. With a further 28% likely to have difficulties with reading in everyday life.
So as teachers in training it sounds like we'll have a job to do along with the rest of the teaching profession. It won't just be primary school teachers teaching reading - secondary teachers will need to be involved as well.
The report made a number of recommendations. This was the second one:
"Recommendation 2 The Committee recommends that teachers provide systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic code-breaking skills required for foundational reading proficiency. Equally, that teachers provide an integrated approach to reading that supports the development of oral language, vocabulary, grammar, reading fluency, comprehension and the literacies of new technologies."
After reading the evidence and studies outlined in the report I think I would have to agree with this approach. The evidence seems to suggest that first and foremost children at an early age need to be taught direct, explicit and systematic phonics instruction. Without these basic skills all the other strategies for teaching reading will not achieve very much and not achieve the learning outcomes. But along with the necessary basic reading skills, other reading instruction (the whole-language approach) should be integrated to create a balanced reading program.
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