Notes from a Four Corners Program ABC 11/11/19

Producer: Louise Milligan

Dan Tehan Australian Federal Education Minister
"In 2016Year Four has 76% in the highest bracket of PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study). But one-fifth students are at or below the lowest level. Australia ranks 28 out of 50. Countries above Australia include Lithuania, Kazakistan, Bulgaria. For a wealthy country like Australia this is not good enough."

Dr Peter Cross Education Program Director Grattan Institute.
"Year Three is OK but by Year Seven, students are flat lining. That is, their reading progress is slowing down. Between Year 3-4 children are switching off. Writing in particular is slowing down (cf. Karen Cole Cambridge Primary School)."

Veronica Sanders a High School English Tutor says:
"Their vocabulary has decreased. Their spelling is atrocious, that is, really bad. Children don’t know how to use an apostrophe. They can’t spell "their" and "there". The boys are worse and they are are at crisis point as results are getting worse. The average student is about twelve months below what they were a decade ago."

Prof Pamela Snow a Cognitive therapist, says:
"40,000 children, that is, 1 in 7 are not meeting the OECD standards. Moreover unskilled jobs are disappearing. It’s more important than ever that children can read and spell."

(Milligan ?) 28% performed well earlier. But only 4.9% of Year Nine’s were A+ performers. 20% of Year Nine's are below or barely average. That is, they are at the level of Year Five students for reading according to the National Minimum Standards. 		Dan Tehan (Minister for Education) says:
“We’re flat lining as a nation. We need to re-double our efforts. “

Prof Robyn Ewing of Teacher Education University of Sydney says:
“Teachers should be honing their skills according to particular children.”

(on the other hand)


George Nagle and Matt Stewart who are in Teacher Education at the University of Sydney say:
“At uni we are taught an abundance of approaches> But we are not taught which one works.”

(?) Poor results might begin at (this) University level. There has been an enormous change over the past 60 years (in teaching and reading techniques). In 1950’s and early 60’s teaching was far more structured and regimented with emphasis on grammar and rote learning. At grassroots level, the change has been more subtle. In the late 60’s a radical change began in how reading and writing was taught. There has been less focus on grammar, spelling and a system of phonics where children were explicitly taught to break apart and sound out words. The new way was teaching children to recognise and remember whole words. Children may never hear the alphabet being recited. Children identify with total words and related objects. Obviously there are positives to that. There were a lot of things about schooling in the 50-s and 60’s that we would not want to go back to. But I think what happened in relation to reading was the baby was in some senses thrown out with the bath water.

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