This is not a small issue, it is a huge issue. So much so, that IFERI has provided a printable document to describe this, see here:
http://www.iferi.org/wp-content/uploads ... oned-1.pdf
I have been asked by Kate Gurjian to post the following description of the travesty in Australia with regard to the official Australian Curriculum:
Note that the word 'decodable' has been omitted from the NSW curriculum above!Debbie - please can you insert the following:
Currently, and is evident in my private practice enrolling more than 100 children per year, the instructional casualties are rife – every child, bar none, are the result of teachers refusing to understand that decodable books are a necessity.
Berys Dixon’s article, What happened to the ‘D’ word? responds to the fact that the Australian Curriculum includes; ‘decodable texts’ as part of the Foundations and Year One Outcome, but in the Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales version of the curriculum it has been omitted. See below:
Australian Curriculum - Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing) By the end of the Foundation year, students use predicting and questioning strategies to make meaning from texts. They recall one or two events from texts with familiar topics. They understand that there are different types of texts and that these can have similar characteristics. They identify connections between texts and their personal experience. They read short, decodable and predictable texts with familiar vocabulary and supportive images, drawing on their developing knowledge of concepts of print, sounds and letters and decoding and self-monitoring strategies.
BUT...
NSW Curriculum -
Reading and viewing 1
Outcome
A student:
ENe-4A demonstrates developing skills and strategies to read, view and comprehend short, predictable texts on familiar topics in different media and technologies
Kate Gurjian
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Time To Shine Education
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Whether teachers are trained and/or knowledgeable about the findings of a body of research on reading, and whether they provide an experience for children informed by science, guided by an evidence-informed official curriculum, and whether children are provided with books to read that they cannot read, or that they struggle to read rather than being provided with books to read that they can read, should not be left to CHANCE.
We know a huge amount about how best to teach reading effectively - and the improvement in the scores of England's statutory end of Year One Phonics Screening Check year on year is an indicator of the fact that teachers can teach knowledge and skills more effectively - same teachers, same children, change of content and approach, better results. This is huge. Thankfully, it is looking like Australia may soon launch its own phonics screening check which may well be a much-needed wake-up call for officials in Australia who have yet to take on board the research findings and ensure guidance that is best for all children.