Why Parents Should Care About the Reading Wars

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Why Parents Should Care About the Reading Wars

The teaching of literacy is one of the most heavily researched and argued about areas of education today. The decline in Australian literacy standards, as compared to international data, raises concerns about how we teach literacy to young children. Are we teaching literacy skills effectively?

This ongoing debate is known as “the reading wars” and while it is adults who are arguing, it is children who suffer the consequences of poor literacy instruction in their early years. Furthermore, difficulties with the skills of reading can negatively impact all other learning areas, as well as adversely affect general wellbeing and confidence. Parents concerned about their child’s progress will want to understand how their child is being taught and what approach to learning literacy is undertaken at their child’s school.

The primary school years are about giving your child the best start in life, but many schools and teachers still waver between two educational approaches to the teaching of reading: Balanced Literacy and Structured Literacy (you may have heard terms like Science of Reading or Systematic Synthetic Phonics used when describing this approach).

The breakdown of the twoOver the last few decades, Balanced Literacy has been favoured by most Australian primary schools.

– Students are taught to memorise and guess words using a combination of recognising full words and making meaning from them when encountering them in text and a sprinkling of phonics (letter-sounds).

– This method has been popular for many years, as educators believe it builds a love of reading and language whilst loosely embedding phonics.

– Unfortunately, it has also been shown to have serious limitations, especially when children encounter difficulties. Even children who seem to learn to read easily might not know their letter-sound correspondences well enough to spell them and begin struggling midway through primary school when texts become more complicated and feature fewer pictures to help them ‘guess’ words.

This brings us to the Structured Literacy approach based on the Science of Reading, which some may consider a more contentious approach to learning literacy. MLC’s Head of Junior School, Louise Peyton, explains: “As a movement, the Science of Reading (SoR) has actually been around for about two decades, but it has had a slow implementation across Australian schools.”

– The term ‘SoR’ refers to the body of evidence that has found the most effective way to teach reading is by following an explicit, systematic approach focusing on the five key areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

– Children are taught how their language and spelling system works in a structured sequence. SoR is wellrounded and ensures that a child’s literacy foundations are really strong.

– Children don’t get left behind, either, because formative assessment is incorporated from day one.

“With SoR, essentially, we continuously take a snapshot of where your child is at with their literacy skills and build from there. You, as the parent, are also more informed and can better support your child at home,” Louise explains.

Where in Australia has it been implemented?

In NSW, the government has begun to emphasise understandings of literacy aligned to the science and across all public schools will mandate its use in the first three years of primary school. A new version of the Australian curriculum was recently published and has removed any reference to predictable texts and the “threecueing system”, another staple of the whole language and balanced literacy approaches to teaching children to read.

However, it is unclear how fully Victorian government education will adopt the new national curriculum. Currently, only a small number of Victorian schools are adopting a Structured Literacy approach based on the Science of Reading.

What to look for

“As parents, it is important to understand these developments and to identify a school that is up to date. It is also important to ask whether the school invests in their teachers with professional development to learn the latest and most effective teaching practices,” says Louise.

“We partner with MultiLit, a research initiative of Macquarie University and use their programs and resources. The educators at MLC have already undertaken professional development training and put this evidence-based practice into action. It is an excellent fit for our proactive approach to learning support and wellbeing as a College. Learning, like any other speciality, progresses over time. The reading wars are historically based on various theories about how children learn to read but now, the research is comprehensive and cannot be ignored.”

What is exciting is this approach is not just for students who struggle; it benefits all children, including advanced learners. We can already see how this approach provides all of our students with the core skills they require to become successful readers and writers. Throughout MLC Junior School, quality teaching and learning experiences aligned with current research are implemented across all year levels to ensure no student is left behind.