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Articles on Phonics

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Research in England has found that the proposed test was no more accurate than the teacher’s judgement in identifying children with reading difficulties. Shutterstock

New phonics test will do nothing to improve Australian children’s literacy

Education Minister Simon Birmingham is right to be concerned about the number of children struggling with literacy - but this test is not the solution.
Children need to learn how to sound out words they haven’t seen before. from www.shutterstock.com

Why do we need a phonics test for six-year-olds?

Many young children can give the false impression that they are learning to read, when in fact they are mostly guessing words from pictures or context. This test will help to identify these students.
Phonics helps teach children how to merge separate sounds together to make it one word. from www.shutterstock.com

Explainer: what is phonics and why is it important?

Phonics instruction gives children letter-sound knowledge, a skill that is essential for them to read unfamiliar words by themselves.
Pressuring kids to memorise obscure, low frequency words does not promote good learning. from www.shutterstock.com.au

Spelling bees don’t teach kids literacy, or much else

Channel Ten’s newly announced show, The Great Australian Spelling Bee, may seem like a great platform for promoting literacy skills. But it is promoting the memorisation of pointless, low-frequency words rather than anything helpful.
The small amount of research that has been undertaken on Reading Recovery does show a positive effect. But all teacher interventions show some positive effect, and it’s not enough to justify continued use of the program. from www.shutterstock.com

There are many remedial programs superior to Reading Recovery

The Reading Recovery program assumes reading is a natural process that can be guessed from pictures, but there are far better programs with proven effectiveness.
Literacy doesn’t just mean being able to recognise letters and words on a page. Shutterstock

A balanced approach is best for teaching kids how to read

We all want young children to be given the very best opportunities to become successful, engaged and passionate readers. The teaching of reading is constantly mired, however, in a tired old debate between…
English is a complex language with roots in many others, and the teaching of it should reflect this. AAP

The way we teach most children to read sets them up to fail

A new batch of Australian five-year-olds has just started school, eager to learn to read and write. Unfortunately for them, English has one of the most difficult spelling systems of any language, thanks…
Spell it out. Alphabet soup via Brian Mueller/Shutterstock

Teaching to the T-E-S-T: phonics is working for most children

Teaching children to read with phonics has been a central plank of recent “Govian” education policy. A new set of statistics shows that 74% of children in the first year of primary school now meet the…
Struggling to read? You may not be using your brain effectively. Flickr/Lab2112

Use your brain and teach children to read properly

Almost half of all Australians aged 15-74 years had literacy skills below the level required to participate effectively in our society, according to a 2008 study from the Australian Bureau of Statistics…
Despite ideas to the contrary, the evidence shows that texting does not make us bad spellers. Flickr/lanier67

Texting dsn’t make U a bad spellr

Children and teenagers today do all the things that children and teenagers have more or less always done – they talk to their friends, have dinner with the family, and watch TV. However, as even the casual…
A year four slump can be avoided if children are given the tools to read when very young. Flickr/Éole

As easy as ABC: the way to ensure children learn to read

Human speech has long been present in every culture, and our brains have evolved specialized features to enable its rapid development when we are exposed to the speech of others. Reading however is a relatively…

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