England's Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, visits Australia to support introduction of phonics

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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England's Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, visits Australia to support introduction of phonics

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Nick Gibb's visit is a very significant event in Australia's development with regard to reading instruction and the suggestion that Australia should adopt a similar year one phonics check to the statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check in England:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-11/c ... ad/8435562
Australia urged to use phonics in reading strategy as British schools minister tours country

By the National Reporting Team's Natasha Robinson and Rebecca Ermitage

British schools minister Nick Gibb is urging Australia to embrace phonics as part of a national strategy to help children read.

He is here to meet educators, teachers and politicians as the Turnbull Government moves to introduce literacy screening in Year 1 across the country.

Mr Gibb has toured a specialist literacy laboratory at Macquarie University in Sydney ahead of a meeting with federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham in Adelaide later this week.

Seven years ago, the UK Government embraced the explicit method of instruction known as phonics at a national level amid concerning national statistics.

Mr Gibb is responsible for English schools.

"We were worried that one in three primary school students were still struggling with reading, the basic building blocks of an education," Mr Gibb said.

"We wanted to make sure that schools were using systematic synthetic phonics in the way they taught children to read, because all the evidence from around the world showed that was the most effective way of teaching children to read.
I'm cross-referencing this check with the thread from the 'General Forum' dedicated to the paper of Dr Jennifer Buckingham proposing the adoption of a phonics check in Australia:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=688
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: England's Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, visits Australia to support introduction of phonics

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Greg Ashman writes a very timely piece for his blog 'Filling the Pail' perhaps in response to a member of the audience of Nick's talk who raised the issue of some teachers trying to get on board with systematic synthetic phonics teaching but that the official 'L3' guidance contradicts this teaching, as does some of the assessment, as does the fact their schools are filled with repetitive texts rather than cumulative, decodable texts.

https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2017/0 ... 3-debacle/
What can we learn from the L3 debacle?
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: England's Minister for School Standards, Nick Gibb, visits Australia to support introduction of phonics

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

You can read more about Nick Gibb's international work and influence here:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=767
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