Reading is in the news they say we need a revolution - lets revolt!

 

A new "report" by The Grattan Institute has hit the media this week. It is early in the Australian school year, teachers are just meeting their new classes and adjusting to yet more new syllabus documents. The timing of this is so awful and this report fills me with rage and dismay. 

Think about these awful sensational newspaper headlines: 

• ‘We need a reading revolution’: Schools urged to chase more ambitious targets; 
• “Productivity? Ensure kids can read”; 
• One-third of Australian children can't read properly as teaching methods cause 'preventable tragedy', Grattan Institute says; 
• One in three could be left behind without revolution to end reading wars 
• Poor reading skills costing economy billions

YES of course we want all children to succeed with reading. BUT there is SO much more to this than learning rote skills or parroting phonics or other forms of whole group mass instruction.

Children need;

• BOOKS - these can come from libraries especially SCHOOL libraries. Children need access to the best books we can give them and today there are millions of these - please stop talking about antiquated favourites such as Enid Blyton - the world has moved on. Every bookshop and library is filled with book treasures. I have 3000+ on this blog for example. We live in an age when there is an explosion of books being published for children. 

• BOOKS and CHOICE - someone needs to purchase books, and organise them and promote them - this is the role of the TEACHER-LIBRARIAN - and every school should have a trained person in this important role. Readers also need choice and this comes from their school library which can hold many more books than could ever be placed in a single classroom.

• TIME - children need to be given time to read - how can they develop stamina, and more importantly discover that reading is a wonderful activity well beyond just something we do for information. The goal of reading for pleasure should be a top priority in all classrooms.

I have talked about reading on this blog previously:

• Libraries, books, time for reading, and more
• The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller
• Sydney Morning Herald article "Children are forgetting the joy of reading books"
• Wisdom for Teacher-Librarians (and teachers too)
• Back to school - Read to your class (please)

Please please please - Watch this video from Colby Sharp - he identities FOUR things we need to do develop lifelong readers, to help students see a purpose for reading. To help them fall in love with reading! TIME, ACCESS TO BOOKS, CHOICE, COMMUNITY (the classroom community filled with kids who love reading, who inspire others to read, who talk about reading and see it as a wonderful activity). 

Here are two wonderful letters written in response to The Grattan Institute report by retired Teacher-Librarian Sharon McGuinness 

Two weeks into the new school year, and we have a new report on the teaching of reading. Jordana Hunter calls for a 'reading revolution' but fails to realise that such a revolution cannot take place without developing a love of reading for enjoyment as an essential part of her reading guarantee.  This means a whole school approach in adopting a reading culture, providing rich experiences where students can choose and read the books they want, from a school library selected by a professional who can respond to the students' specific reading needs. Don't ignore the role that developing an enjoyment of reading plays alongside acquiring reading skills. That's the real reading revolution we need. Sharon McGuinness, Thirroul

I want all kids to read well and confidently but also for enjoyment and all their lives. Even though it is claimed to be a myth, the structured literacy approach can lead to “readicide” when the teaching of reading is overly dependent on “readers” and whole class “read alouds”, which is boring and monotonous. All students learn to read differently, it’s not by osmosis, it’s not by whole language alone and it’s certainly not via structured literacy ie direct instruction alone. Teachers don't need more 'methods' tell them they are doing it wrong, they need to be able to tailor their teaching to suit the needs of the children in their class. They also need more funded learning support staff in every classroom, while every school needs a professional teacher librarian and funded school library to support wide reading needs of the entire school. The reading wars will not be over until each is guaranteed Sharon McGuinness, Thirroul

Look at this six-point solution from the Grattan Institute - I sigh and sigh - where are the books, where is the library, where is the reading passion, where is the purpose. Comprehension is barely mentioned. We do not need more testing!!!

The Grattan report calls on all Australian state and territory governments, and Catholic and independent school sector leaders, to commit to a six-step ‘Reading Guarantee’:

1. Pledge that at least 90 per cent of Australian students will become proficient readers.

2. Give principals and teachers specific guidelines on how to teach reading in line with the evidence on what works best.

3. Provide schools with the high-quality curriculum materials and assessments that teachers need to teach reading well.

4. Require schools to do universal screening of students’ reading skills and help struggling students to catch-up.

5. Ensure teachers have the knowledge and skills they need, through extra training, and by appointing Literacy Instructional Specialists in schools.

6. Mandate a nationally consistent Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, and regularly review schools’ and principals’ performance on teaching their students to read.

Here is the full report - I did a search for the word LIBRARY - it is not there - well it is there five times in the bibliography!

Then there is a whole layer of conversation to be had from the cartoon image that accompanied the Sydney Morning Herald letters I have quoted above.

Image source: Sydney Morning Herald 14th February, 2024 John Shakespeare

I have talked about the enormous impact of devices on our children in a previous post. The Grattan report does NOT mention the school library but it does mention the word VOCABULARY 25 times. If parents and other adults are not talking with and reading to our children then of course they never develop their vocabulary knowledge. This is another aspect of reading and in my view it cannot be taught in isolation. Children need to hear rich language in books and in conversations and from that they will use these words in their own communication - talking and writing. 

This important point is buried in the report in table 2.1 page 24 For beginning readers, as well as reading decodable texts for independent practice, rich texts should be read together, led by the teacher, so all students are exposed to new and more complex vocabulary, sentence structure, non-literal language, and background knowledge.

Where will these RICH TEXTS come from?  The school library is the best place surely. 

Here are two more letters to our Sydney Morning Herald from this week:

I, too, was lucky to be able to read before attending a one-teacher school in 1940 where phonics and drill in basic arithmetic were the morning schedule. My teacher training course covered a suite of reading strategies I used successfully as a primary teacher. However, my years as a special school principal and later a researcher in reading, revealed that a proportion of children find reading quite difficult. They need carefully structured lesson plans which include phonics together with strategies to ensure that there is joy in reading through stirring the imagination. ...  Trevor Parmenter, Breakfast Point

In my many years of visiting scores of schools as a researcher I never met one teacher who did not appreciate that phonics is a useful, indeed necessary tool in teaching reading but it is limited and is one aspect of a suite of measures emphasising reading for meaning rather than decoding. Many words cannot be “sounded out”. A balanced approach takes into consideration children’s prior learning, home background, their interests, local contexts, the joy of a story or poem, and more. In ensuring “kids can read” comprehension and love of reading to learn are what matter. Ron Sinclair, Windradyne

Apologies for all the capital letters in this blog post - but I think this reflects my rage over this issue.