‘Our system fails so many young people’: Australia’s huge literacy challenge

A new book looks at how the system is failing some children, and how parents can help.

Learning to read, for many children, is fraught and not an easily acquired skill, a new book says.

Learning to read and subsequently being a reader is a skill and a way of life. To me, reading is a way of being; through research we know that reading is central to wellbeing, academic success and job opportunities.

Indeed, effective education is classified as a fundamental human right by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Yet learning to read, for many, is fraught and not an easily acquired skill – high rates of reading failure worldwide is testament to this.

Even I, a teacher librarian who has provided my children with the same print- and language-rich home environment as I grew up in (thanks, Mum and Dad), have discovered that for some family members this supportive environment still has not produced readers.

We must also consider how our young people are being taught the skills of reading in schools, Megan Daley argues.

I remain convinced that a home environment that fosters both oral and print language is the “gold standard”, and is a significant protective factor in “raising readers”, but we must also consider how our young people are being taught the skills of reading.

Research in education, neuroscience, linguistics and cognitive Reading and School psychology allow education systems and educators to now understand that, unlike speaking and listening, which in most cases are naturally acquired as part of human development, the skills of reading and writing require explicit instruction and knowledge.

The educational outcome of this research has produced the science of reading. Without explicit instruction, not all children will slip easily into “being a reader”, even when supported with the best of intentions.

Some children will learn to read with minimal instruction, but the vast majority need to be taught explicitly.

The shift towards the science of reading is slow because teaching is a demanding profession and teachers need time and professional development to take on board the research.

My own journey in understanding the science of reading and applying it in my teaching practice has been at times challenging, even distressing. I have wrestled with the task of pulling apart and critically examining my own university education, my personal experiences as a reader, writer and parent, and my personal preferences. But when we know better, we can do better.

Some children will learn to read with minimal instruction, but the vast majority need to be taught explictly.

I find it incomprehensible that our system fails so many young people and allows them to grow into adults still struggling with literacy issues. I have my own literacy challenges (punctuation and spelling – just talk to my mother or my podcast co-host Allison Tait) but the protective factors of my home environment ensured my journey to becoming a reader and writer was a smooth one.

Language skills follow a social gradient and a disproportionate number of children from low socio-economic family backgrounds have fewer protective factors and greater risk factors.

Access to quality and early explicit instruction is what we must demand from our education system.

If you are an educator on your own journey of understanding how we teach the code of written English to ensure literacy success, I recommend the podcast Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong by American education reporter Emily Hanford.

I saw myself in this podcast, I saw my place in the system and how I contributed to challenges for young people struggling to learn the reading code. It also filled me with hope for the future of reading.

Parents need to understand the skill of reading so they can support their children at home.

As a parent or caregiver, it is important that you understand the skill of reading so you can advocate for your child and support them in the home environment. Further, it enables you to champion skilled classroom teachers, teacher librarians and other allied health professionals.

INGREDIENTS OF READING

The science of reading identified the main ingredients required to learn to read and the sequence in which they should occur.

I am a keen baker who uses baking to solve most of the problems in my life. As a baker, I understand that making a cake is a science and I can’t deviate from the outlined ingredients or the order of the steps, which have been tested multiple times by expert chefs and food scientists. A curry or granola may have a “little of this and a little of that” to artfully balance flavours but, when baking, one must follow the ingredients and the steps to the letter.

Explicit, evidence-informed reading instruction does not diminish educator autonomy or discard the art of teaching children how to read.

Teaching remains an artform and skilled educators consciously and creatively build connection with students, nurturing empathy and persistence, and creating pathways for young minds to bridge key learning areas and maximise learning outcomes.

I may bake a cake based on science but I present it at the table in an artful way so it will be fully appreciated and enjoyed.

In the same way, teaching is artful, but parts of it must acknowledge research-based science to ensure successful outcomes.

There are six ingredients for learning to read.

The ingredients for reading are:

■ Oral language

■ Phonemic awareness

■ Phonics

■ Fluency

■ Vocabulary

■ Comprehension

An independent reader is a masterpiece – beautiful to behold – and as every lifelong reader knows, the reading recipe will challenge and delight in equal measure and become richer as its flavours develop. In this way, a reader is less like a cake and more like a master stock or a sourdough starter that will, when nurtured, continue to gain value and improve over time.

Just as a baker follows a recipe precisely, educators guide students through these stages with explicit, evidence-informed instruction. By blending science-based methods with artful delivery, educators craft rich and robust learning experiences.

Making changes to teaching within schools can be hard. Go too quickly and staff can become confused and vulnerable. Go too slowly and uptake becomes inconsistent.

Assessing each teacher’s toolkit and figuring out which techniques need to be enhanced and which need to be de-implemented takes time. Schools aren’t historically great at de-implementation practices. Letting go of outdated techniques and habits is incredibly challenging and will take time.

Author Megan Daley.

Attending various professional development (PD) courses or workshops for staff can be one way to upskill teachers and change teaching practices. Sharing articles and podcasts might be another. Working collaboratively to unpack and assess different programs and how they might fit in your school context is also important.

Some students will have complex needs and schools need to be open-minded about engaging with a multi-disciplinary team that includes speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists and paediatricians who can understand student needs.

As a parent of a school-age child, I know trying to decide which school to attend and understand what the school’s literacy program is like can be daunting. What is written on a school’s website or brochure isn’t necessarily the same as what is happening in all classrooms.

Remember: a teacher’s individual pedagogical style can be strong, so it is important to gain a representative sample of teaching styles before forming a view.

Schools are dynamic places that are always changing, so this needs to be understood
and responses need to be framed in a flexible way.

This is an edited extract of Raising Readers by Megan Daley, UQP, $33, out now

Raising Readers by Megan Daley.

THE ART OF READING

■ Reading and writing share reciprocal skills. Reading and writing taught in tandem are mutually reinforcing, as they sharemany underlying skills.

■ Reading is not simple. In fact, teaching children to read is one of the most important tasks in primary classrooms as thereis an urgent need to reduce the number of people who cannot read.

■ Writing is not simple. In fact, it is probably one of the most cognitively demanding activities students undertake in a dayat school. Writing is more than just transcription of spoken language; it is a means of communication that typically involvesmore complex grammatical structures and a wider vocabulary.

■ Students’ cognitive resources are limited. The mental energy and capacity that pupils employ to think, learn and solve issuesis referred to as cognitive resources.

Originally published as ‘Our system fails so many young people’: Australia’s huge literacy challenge