Page 4089 - Week 13 - Thursday, 31 October 2013
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difficulties respond to this kind of teaching, that many of the children identified with learning difficulties may well be able to learn to read in the classroom but would benefit from being taught in different ways from how they are currently being taught. The question is: are all ACT classrooms able to deliver on that? I suspect the answer is that, yes, clearly some of them can and are, but not all of them, and perhaps not in a systematic way and not using programs, resources and teaching pedagogy that is endorsed by the directorate.
What do we know about how the ACT currently operates? Let me touch on a few points. We know that in the ACT decisions about methods of literacy teaching are left with the principal of each school. The directorate-endorsed literacy frameworks used are whole-language based. Some individual schools have introduced the teaching of bottom-up phonics but it is unclear how many. Teacher understanding of systematic bottom-up phonics teaching is limited and there is a broad need for staff development. And families with children who have reading difficulties unfortunately do feel unsupported, which takes us to the report released by the task force and the motion that I have moved here today.
The motion seeks to acknowledge how this debate has progressed with the completion of the report from the Taskforce on Students with Learning Difficulties and the government response, which essentially supports all the recommendations and strategies outlined in the report. The task force report was written by a group of professionals, including primary teachers and principals, a speech pathologist and a counsellor, an academic as well as parents of children with dyslexia and a young person with dyslexia.
My motion indicates the Assembly’s thanks to the members of that task force for the time and effort they put into preparing the report. I know that the parents of children with learning difficulties would send their thanks too for the work that was done. The report focused on recommendations in three main areas: a consistent systemic approach, including the addition of endorsed evidence-based approaches that would provide a consistent and supportive platform in the teaching of literacy and numeracy.
The report talks about the need to build a high level of understanding across the directorate about learning difficulties so that strategies can be implemented. It is acknowledged that access to specialist services in the ACT can be limited and so a consistent response across schools would assist in children getting the intervention they need when they need it. The report also touches on what is called the response to intervention model whereby the pathway for a child who is struggling to read can be clearly identified by how they respond to what they are being taught, starting with how they respond in the classroom through to how they respond in small groups or one on one.
The second area the report focused on was building staff capacity. Teachers are our great resource in the education system and the report calls for a strategy to build the capacity of staff to meet the needs of students with learning difficulties in partnership with school leadership. This is an interesting issue, because parents report frequently that one of the reasons they do not get the help they need at school is because teachers have not been trained to implement some of the programs and practices that are being recommended to help children with learning difficulties.
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