Schools should start teaching children to read in year two, expert says

An expert wants kids to delay learning to read because doing so in prep makes them anxious and causes learning problems.

Teaching children to read when they start school is making them anxious and causing learning problems, a veteran Australian literacy expert says.

Teaching children to read when they start school is making them anxious and causing learning problems, a veteran Australian literacy expert says.

Teacher, author and speech pathologist Susan Galletly said schools should start teaching children to read in year two ­instead of prep.

“We should look at delaying the teaching of reading and spelling, and instead give them play-based learning designed to build readiness for literacy,” Dr Galletly said.

“Schools are too pressured, when you come into a school all you see is pressure. We add hundreds of hours to a teacher’s load teaching reading and spelling to kids who might not be ready.”

The Central Queensland University research fellow is speaking out in light of Australia’s international literacy rankings slipping from fourth to 16th in reading over 20 years.

Schools should start teaching children to read in year two ­instead of prep, according to one expert. Picture: Istock

Her new book, Bunyips in the Classroom, calls for radical changes to the way children learn to read and argues children are being left behind by a clunky curriculum and overworked teachers.

“Australia has a language weakness epidemic, so many kids are starting school with weak language,” she said.

“All we are doing is generating learning difficulties with all the pressure.”

Dr Galletly said the “bun­yip” in the room was the fact it took Aussie children six years to learn to read properly but only four weeks in countries such as Finland.

Her manifesto, built on five decades of teaching and ­researching, argues a new ­approach is needed because Australia has one of the most complicated language systems in the world

“As a result, English language and our orthography, or spelling system, is dragging us down. It actually takes six years on average to master word reading in Australia, and nine years to master spelling. That’s a very long time relative to the weeks to months of so many other nations,” she said.

Dr Galletly said in English there were 26 letters, more than 40 sounds and 1100 spelling patterns. In comparison, in a language such as Finnish there were 23 letters, 23 sounds and 23 spelling patterns.

Dr Susan Galletly is calling for radical changes to the way children learn to read.

She said the curriculum was putting pressure on teachers “to teach to the middle when they should be teaching to the top third and the bottom third”.

Writing standards in schools are in the spotlight.

Research from the Australian Educational Research Organisation released this week showed writing skills had ­declined markedly, with year 9 students writing at year 7 level and struggling to form sen­tences properly.

Michelle Murphy, a Werribee mother-of-four, said her kids “absolutely love reading”.

“I have an eight-year-old and a three-year-old, my eight-year-old daughter learnt to read basically from 1½,” Ms Murphy said.

“We read to her every night in bed. It sort of became a bit of a tradition, we’d go to bed and read a book. From a very young age she learnt to understand words. She would get excited and try to remember the story on her own.”