|
'Teach your child
to read and spell'
Download specific lesson
plans and resources
Available soon
Read
Australia Founder
'The Child Listener'
Emma
Hartnell-Baker
Advice and Information
is
offered by Emma
Hartnell-Baker who has a
BEd
Hons with a Specialism in The Early Years (1992) and Post Graduate qualifications
in Behaviour Management, Personal, Social and Emotional
Development, Counselling and Helping People and Dyslexia.
She has a Masters Degree
in Special Educational Needs from Nottingham University and
is a Professional Life Coach.
Emma
uses a range of strategies
and methods, to
meet the individual needs of children- according to their
learning style, interests,
natural strengths and weaknesses- and aims to
share these with parents and early years educators.
However she encourages
all literacy specialists to
offer their own tips and
advice- creating an online community for parents-
and practical support for
parents who do not know
where to turn when their
children are being failed at school.
Professor Kevin Wheldall has recently had published a new article, "How Children Learn To Read", in the Journal of Primary Leadership Today. Click here to download the pdf, from the MULTILT web site.
Excellent Web SIte
- Promoting Synthetic Phonics
The Reading
Reform Foundation
http://rrf.org.uk/
'Parents Aboard'
Facilitating effective
parental involvement in
schools- empowering
parents, sharing learning experiences.
Read Australia list methods used to teach children to
read and spell and that allow for systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction
- Read Australia- sharing information about
methods used to teach
children to
read and spell!
Proactively Involving
parents
Sounds 'help pupils
with reading'
Phonics gave pupils a
head-start, the study found
Teaching children literacy by
using the sounds letters make speeds
up their progress, a report says.
Eleven-year-olds in
Clackmannanshire, Scotland, who
used the "synthetic phonics"
method were three years
ahead in reading.
The local authority is using the
technique in its 19 primary schools.
A seven-year study by Hull and
St Andrews universities also found
pupils were on average almost
two years ahead of others in Scotland at spelling.
Read
article
The publication of the
Clackmannanshire research regarding
the impact of synthetic phonics on progression in reading, as
well as
the Select Committee's report
on
teaching children to read has re-focused attention on a long-standing
debate concerning the emphasis of synthetic phonics in the National
Literacy
Strategy. The central issue in
the
debate is not whether synthetic phonics
is taught but how.
Read more - DfES web site
Rose
Review of Reading
Rose Report
What is Dyslexia?
Click Here
"Read Australia" -
Introducing Phonics Methods of Teaching Reading & Spelling
- teach children to read
and spell
using systematic phonics programs.
Addressing the recommendations
as outlined in the Rose Report (UK)
and the National Inquiry into the
Teaching of Literacy (Australia) .......
Read Australia no
lists information relating to quality
phonics programmes - effective ways t
o
teach children
to read and spell.
Emma Hartnell-Baker no longer
has plans to
deliver workshops
or training relating to
Phono-Graphix
within Australia
in the future.
'Read Australia'
continues to offer
free information
and web site links to quality phonics programs around
the world.
THRASS, Jolly Phonics, Sounds~Write, Superphonics, The Sound Speech Set.....
and will be delivering training to
Australian schools, teachers and parents in 2009.Please do join us!... |
Email info@ReadAustralia.com
Tel (+61) 7 5510 9960
Literacy in Australia- learn how to teach children to read & spell
at home and in schools using effective phonics programs.
Packed with Free information & Useful Literacy Links!
Are you one of the many many parents who are visiting Read Australia™
because you're confused and need help - or simply want to know the easier,
quickest way to teach your child to read and spell with confidence?
Help is
Available Soon through
"Parents Aboard"
The 'Read Australia™' DVD- Introducing Children to
Reading & Spelling
(suitable for children aged 20 months+)
Keeping it Simple for Parents and Children'
'How to Teach ALL Children to Read, Write and Spell with Confidence' Instructional DVD
for sale- $79
Buy DVD Here
______________________________________________________________
‘Introducing Children
to the Magical World of Reading and Spelling’
A Message from ‘The Child Listener™’
Emma Hartnell-Baker BEd Hons. MA Special Educational Needs. Cert Life Coaching
“Reading competence is foundational, not only for school-based learning, but
also for children’s behavioural and psychosocial wellbeing, further education
and training, occupational success, productive and fulfilling participation in social
and economic activity, as well as for the nation’s social and economic future”
AU National Inquiry into the Teaching of Reading 2005.
View Summary
When I first began specialising in child behaviour management
over a decade ago I quickly recognised a correlation between
poor literacy achievement and delinquency. I was not surprised therefore,
in recent years, to read of some US states actually predicting future
prison populations based on year 3 and 4 reading scores.
And yet when I have suggested to Head Teachers that they should
re-consider how reading is being taught within their schools- as a
way to not only improve literacy achievement, but also see improved behaviour throughout the school, you would think, by their reaction, that I was
suggesting something really bizarre. Despite the lack of accurate
estimates on the overlap between literacy under-achievement and
crime, the associated links however are well documented
(e.g. McNee, 2004; Mayhew, 2003). So teaching all children to read early
on has wide reaching benefits within society.
For the purposes of this letter I will presume that the reader is interested
in the initial stage of learning to read- however systematic phonics
instruction is critical if children are to be taught to read well, whether or not
they are beginning to learn to read, or experiencing reading difficulties.
Within our current education system we are often so focussed on
'child based learning' and on constructivism (an established theory of
knowing and learning rather than a theory of teaching) and teachers often
do not realise that there is a serious lack of supporting evidence for its
effectiveness in teaching children to read. Unfortunately one 'method' of
teaching reading- the 'whole-language' approach to teaching and learning
- reflects this philosophy of learning, and has been the predominant
approach for early literacy teaching and learning throughout English
- speaking countries (Pearson, 2000; Westwood, 1999, 2004).
This approach assumes that children are inherently active, self-regulating
learners who construct knowledge for themselves, with teachers needing
to give little or no explicit decoding instruction. While this may be ok for
many children, the ones we focus on at Read Australia™ are those who
struggle
- and on creating a new culture within Australia whereby these children
do not need to struggle for long before receiving specific 1:1 help.
Furthermore, I believe that if we change
the way we teach, these
children won't need that additional 1:1 help in any case! Reading Recovery
has been scrapped- why not scrap the reason for needing it in the first place
as well?
This group can also include children who are from disadvantaged
backgrounds who often do not have rich phonological knowledge
and phonemic awareness upon which to base new learning.
Being taught using this 'whole language' method has the effect of
compounding their disadvantage once they begin school. This is particularly
the case for children from non-English speaking backgrounds, including
Indigenous children where English may be their second or third language.
So why do so many people advocate their method- and use it? Results
show over and over again that this does not facilitate literacy development
and achievement for ALL children. Through Read Australia™ I am speaking
out on behalf
of the children being left behind.
The sounds in our language existed long before the letters. The written
symbols of our language were invented to represent the sounds we
have been speaking for centuries. Teaching children these sounds is easy
when they are speaking- as they know those sounds- they are using them in
words pretty much all day (don't we know it!) So we need to teach them how
the sounds we use (when we speak) are represented on paper ie how to
de-code the written word. This is more commonly known as ‘reading’.
While in Australia I have been astounded by how often children are sent
home during their first year with 'sight words' and also with 'readers'
that they cant possible de-code. If they were asked to come home and
practice
fine motor skills by painting a Mona Lisa we would think the
teachers mad- they arent ready for that yet? So why are we doing it with
'readers'? Also, if we teach children 'whole words' (by asking them to learn
sight words) we
aren't teaching children that these words are based on
the 'sounds' in words- but rather, we are relying on memory.
Let me put this into perspective- a typical person can only retain
around 2000 - 3000 words- enough to perform at year 1 level.
However by memorising children will soon start forgetting those words,
and run out of ways to guess and memorise. It will become harder for them
to distinguish 'horse' from 'house' etc because they are trying to remember
the whole word and it's becoming more difficult as more words are introduced
and used. So instead we should ‘keep it simple’ and teach children the
individual sounds that make up words- of which there are just 134.
If they are going to be given 'sight' words to learn we'd rather it be the
handful of words that can't be de-coded eg yacht'. There are 55 words
in the English language that they won't be able to de-code. The other
19,950 that we use daily are predictable and decodable however! -
if the 'code' is understood. So it's important we teach children
that way round.
We need teachers to understand why this
method (teaching children to
actually crack the written code) is most effective for the highest number
of children so that they more proactively create opportunities- both direct
teaching and also through play. They need to offer children opportunities to
focus on the words they form verbally, and how they create these words-
through rich play opportunities encouraging dialogue, and increasing verbal intelligence. Children need also to begin to recognise the link between
their verbal dialogue, with the words and particularly the letters
(pictures of sounds we use within our verbal language) that are used to
create these whole words. Through Read Australia we will be sharing
this information with parents- as there is much to be done in every day
life at home in those early formative years. Exciting work is currently being
undertaken, for example to discover how simply increasing the attention
to environmental text can affect literacy development. At Read Australia™
we plan to research yet more aspects of the fascinating field of early literacy development- we hope you will join us in our journey of discovery!
There needs to be a focus on explicit teaching of the structure and
function of written and oral language in ways that allow children,
regardless of their backgrounds, to reflect on and consciously manipulate
the language. This involves an awareness of phonemes, syllables and
morphology- and this requires a high degree of teacher-centred
presentation of learning material, with an emphasis on explicit
instruction, scheduled practice and feedback (e.g. Center, 2005;
Westwood, 2003, 2004). This method asks more of our teachers- and
provides children with a greater chance of success.
A great learning environment for young children is one where the focus is
on the sounds of letters and not their names and where children are
taught to understand how words are created. To make this even easier
we recommend writing whole words using bold and non bold type face
- even when parents and teaching are at level 1- and using single
pictures of sounds, and the words that can be created from them- eg cat.
pin, hot etc The parts of words that are in bold are where the sounds
in the words we are speaking are represented by two or more sounds (that
change when put together) eg this - the th is in bold as the 't' and 'h' together
are how we represent the 'th' sound. 'i' and 's' are separate. So teachers
will discuss with the children how we ‘spell’ the word ‘this- ie that the
whole word
has
been created using 3 pictures of sounds- because the
picture for the sound ‘th’ we create verbally is written as ‘th’. So they
would ‘read’ the
word this as ‘this’ ie th + i + s.
We plan on studying how using this bold typeface – or even using
colour or multiple fonts- can help children more easily recognise how
words are created (spelling) or broken down (reading) in the English
language.
We believe that this will be especially helpful to children of
whom English
is a second language, and also children with learning
challenges such
as dyslexia- however we think it can help all new
readers understand
concepts more easily. So we would opt to do it for all
- and as such are
creating readers using words that are written with
the same spacing,
but split into chunks- with letters (pictures of sounds)
in bold when
they become changed when put them together with
other pictures of sounds.
For example the word ‘out’ would be written
out with the ‘ou’ in bold as the
o+u lead us to say a different sound (ow).
As this is a fairly difficult
aspect to describe in text, please refer to the DVD
and YouTube video
(available shortly)
.
When the children have learned even 6 sounds they can start to read
and spell words! Initial 'readers' would be books that have text that doesn't
have many words that have bolded text- eg 'a fat rat ran past' (which as
you will see is a sentence created using just 7 sounds). All words other
than 'the' should be de-coded in these early 'readers- so the children
are actually reading the text. Early readers find this way of viewing text
much easier- it makes sense to them! -so please do try this at home
and in your classroom if you are a teacher or early years educator.
Make them yourselves or
order them from our
online resources page. Ideally resources created are also personal to
the children- making them more meaningful- starting from a selection
of 7 sounds and working on the concepts required so that they can
start to crack the 'written code'. It doesnt really matter which you start with
- but
use seven
that enable you to create the most words.
When confident within Level 1 (available soon) children would be given
a mixture of
books as 'readers'- because their success rate (de-coding,
not guessing) will still be good. Initially however children in these
'ideal classrooms' would only be given 'readers' that they can de-code.
They should of course share 'real' books - or books that have not been
developed using phonics- with older children, parents etc- however to
learn to actually read children would be taught the skills to do so- and
part of that is actually understanding why we write words as we do, and
why we spell them as we do. We absolutely believe that parents should be
reading books to children- as many as possible- and that there are
skills that should be taught to you as parents (also available shortly online) to
ensure that they are being as helpful to children as possible- however there
is no evidence to suggest that reading to your child will actually result in
them
learning to read purely because of this. If you were given thousands
of books with chinese symbols and someone told the stories of these
books, would you think you would learn to decipher the exact meaning of
each of those symbols? And even if you could- wouldn’t you prefer to
actually be taught those symbols in a systematic, and meaningful way?
Keep it simple!
If we look at the AU Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy 2005
(or Rose Report, UK etc) we see that recommendations support this.
Much of how literacy is currently taught within the UK was as a result of the
Rose Report
- and as a former OFSTED Inspector and Early Years
educator within UK I can see huge differences between the UK and Australia
- and especially Queensland.
A school in Scotland decided to focus on Jolly Phonics and their results,
compared to the national average, were staggering. This led to the
government taking a closer look into how children were being taught to
read, so that recommendations could be given based on observations,
results, and research. The Rose Report was born! Since then an Inquiry was
also undertaken within AU- with virtually identical results and recommendations
made. For some reason this document seem to have been ignored- and
at Read Australia™ we are not really sure why? Parents can still use
the summaries however, to get the idea of what teachers should be doing.
'Read Australia™' was created to empower parents so that they
can be more effectively and proactively involved in their children's
literacy development regardless of where they live or which teacher their
child has the fortune or misfortunate to have in the first few years.
Governments have been researching this topic because children were
(and still are) failing- and teachers needed clearer direction. Teachers should
no longer be allowed to get away with using their own preferred method, or
systems they've been using for years because research and clinical studies
show us these aren't meeting the needs of our children. Some teachers
of course ARE providing opportunities for children - and ensuring that
all children are being taught explicitly- however many still aren't- and
children shouldn’t suffer because of this. If children in the early years see
letters and say the name instead of the sound even when asked what it is
a picture of (ie what 'sound') then I become concerned. Why? We don't say
see-aye-tee when we say cat! They need to know the sounds of the alphabet
- not their names- as their names are meaningless with regards to spelling
and reading the English language. Keep it simple!
Good readers understand the code so that when they come across
words they have never seen before they actually break them down. If
adult readers are given unfamiliar text that is what they will find themselves
doing also. Some children ‘crack the code’ quickly even if not being
taught well- however there are many others that don't- especially boys.
These are the ones we are concerned about- and need to be identified
as early as possible. If children are great at spelling words- not just for a test ie
from memory- it’s because they understand how words are broken down
and also understand how the sounds we use to speak- to form words-
are created. For example they will give you all the versions when asked to
spell the word 'brown'. They wont just give the 'correct' spelling- they will
also tell you that it could have been written 'broun' if we were to put the other
'ow' sounds within the word- or if asked to write 'same' they would give
'saym,
sayme, saim, saime,' etc - or 'fur' would also be written 'fir or fer'.
I have always done lots of work with children using 'real' and also
nonsense words as I want to know they really do 'get' the code.
The written word relates to our spoken word- so children must become
aware of the sounds in words - as they hear them. Many children
we assess for example will have difficulty hearing that there are 4 sounds
in 'frog'-or knowing what the word would be if we said 'frog' without the 'r'.
They haven't practised listening to the words we are speaking- and knowing
how to written them down, with the individual sounds in the correct order.
Something many teachers do unfortunately- not realising this makes it
really difficult for children who aren't picking this up quickly- is that they
put two sounds together that should stay separate. So children put for
example 'fr' instead of 'f' and 'r'. We need to keep it simple - if the two
sounds change when put together then that's fine - if not keep them separate.
So 'shop' has 3 sounds - sh o p - but frog has 4 sounds ie f + r +o + g
At this point Id like to raise the issue of ‘sounds’- and how often
people talk about letters making sounds – eg here’s the ‘a’ and he
makes an ‘aaa’ sound. It actually doesn’t. A horse makes a ‘nah’ sound –
a letter in print doesn’t make a sound.
Teacher’s working with young children will understand my point- it’s the
same as trying to count young children sitting in a circle. Many get very
annoyed if they are the number ‘4’ because they aren’t 4. As much as you
say we are counting, and in this situation you are number 4, all she knows
is that she’s not 4! They are fairly literal at that age:-)
So when we say that something on paper makes a sound they can find this
difficult to understand and will parrot off ‘a makes an ‘a’ sound- but have
no idea what that means. They are memorising something- like a song-
with no understanding of the meaning of it. As we are all about
‘keeping it simple’
we’d prefer to keep the way in which we talk to children
accurate, and simple.
So we prefer to say that this is the picture of the sound (put whatever you
want here) and this it the letter name. So ‘ay’ could be shown as the name
of the letter – ‘ay’ is used as a picture for us to record the sound ‘a’.
Please see DVD/ YouTube Video explaining this – it’s easier to understand
when you hear me explain it than on paper.) We also take time
talking to children about why we have text- its to put on paper to record
what we are saying. The words come first though- so focus on language,
and its logical then when we are explaining how to record it on paper.
We are using pictures for the sounds! The code is made up of lots of
pictures of sounds. Some are single pictures- ‘a’ – some pictures have
two or more of these letters ‘ou’ ‘igh’ etc. We start from single pictures
and build up- simple!
Looking for letters, and learning how to form them, can happen virtually
everywhere- use environmental print, and search for words in the world
around us. A section relating to letter formation alongside letter recognition
is being created as a separate document and available shortly.
Children should be tested when they start school- and this should be
on-going, to assess individual progress. Objective, standardised
diagnostic tests that assess the essential alphabetic, decoding skills
required for reading proficiency are available to teachers- however seem
not to be fully utilised. In order to meet the needs of all children we need
to use methods that meet the needs of all children from the beginning
- not give them phonics instruction when they are failing at 7 or 8 as a
way to help them ‘recover’. We KNOW what to do- research relating
to how children learn to read, why some fail and what we can do about it,
is readily available. In addition to actually putting this knowledge into place
we need to pay much more attention to individual children. Teachers s
hould know how each child is developing in all aspects of reading and
spelling, from their first day at Prep and should be sharing this with parents.
We at Read Australia™ believe that it is not fair for children to be at the
mercy of ‘luck’ – or that parents should be in a position of hoping their
child’s teacher understands why some children fail, how to recognise
these children early on, and what to do about it. This is why Read Australia™
are creating the ‘parents Aboard’ Program- to empower parents and
arm them with the tools required to teach their own child to read,
and the knowledge that will enable them to demand that their children
receive reading instruction that will meet their needs.
So please join us and ensure all children are able to read and spell quickly
- we owe them this as parents and educators.
Read Australia™ will soon launch the ‘Parents Aboard’ Program-
linked with what we affectionately call Kiss PhoniX – our focus being on
‘keeping it simple’. Within the Parents Aboard Program is
a simple step by step guide to introducing children to reading and
spelling- and the concepts that are the foundation of these skills.
Parents can start the program at any age- however we have found
that when children reach the age of 2 this is when they are most receptive
- in the same way that they are able to learn two languages at home, and
not be confused. As mentioned previously, think of ‘reading’ and ‘spelling’
as being directly linked to language- so if you child is speaking,
he is ready to start understanding how we record what sounds he is making.
This also leads on to the idea that the richer the language is at home- and
the more practive parents are with regards to developing verbal intelligence,
the easier it is to develop all literacy skills.
As ‘The Child Listener™’ I am passionate about children- and in
helping them develop to their potential in all areas. Reading and spelling
is not something ALL children can do alone. Put children on an island together
– from different countries- and they will develop their own language.
They will never develop a written code however. We need to
change our approach to the teaching of reading, writing and spelling and be
more aggressive in our approach to demanding that all children are given
the best opportunities to learn. Parents/ carers are the best resource for
children- and so rather than focus on the education system- the
focus at Read Australia™ are parents. So come aboard- and let’s start
making real changes across Australia- eventually the education system will
catch on, and alongside parents will start meeting the needs of
every individual child within Australia.
Keep supporting and loving our children, and we will support you-
welcome to our community!- a Fresh Start to Literacy!
Emma
Also known as The Child Listener™
http://www.ReadAustralia.com 'Raising Literacy Standards- Empowering Parents' http://www.The-Child-Listener.com 'Learning to Listen and to Lead'
Kiss Phonix- KEEPING IT SIMPLE!
The Read Australia™ site was created by The Child Listener™ to provide free information and an
overview  of some of the main phonics programs currently available.
Free information and resources relating to
Phono-Graphix Jolly Phonics, Superphonics,
THRASS, Sounds~Write,
The Speech Sound Set,
MULTILIT
.... contact Read Australia
to add more!
The Child Listener™ (Read Australia™
founder) has opened the new Read Australia Head
Office within 'Footprint Solutions
in
Hope Island, on the Gold Coast QLD.
'The Child Listener' is based In Queensland - and her experiences
and
observations of what is happening here is part of the
reason for launching this web site.
She is adamant that our literacy results within
QLD
are not good enough.
Regardless of the reasons, plans for the future,
or intentions of policy makers
and educators she believes that
any child who is not reading with confidence by
the age of 8
has been failed by our system and
that this needs to stop..
Read Australia™ was not created by The Child Listener™ to faciliate blame- her focus is
on creating a
community whereby we are all
working TOGETHER to
provide parents
with
information, resources and the
confidence to be a bigger part of their child's educational development
. In order to do this we need to ensure that as many people as possible understand
how to create an environment in
which children are most likely to succeed- and to
proactively put in place systems in
which we can identify children who are more
likely to need help, early on.
Parents of 5 year olds should already know that their child is going to need additional help
- and all parents
should know how they children are progressing, and what they can do to help them.
She also believes that rather than arguing and trying to be 'right' about methodology we should be collaborating and pooling together our resources, experiences and knowledge.
We dont have
to agree on everything - what we
need to
do is start working together, sharing
experiences and offering support to
one another. We dont have to have a
black and white approach
- either a phonics or whole word approach-
be open,
and see how we can give children as
rich an experience
as possible. Focus on the children, on results
and on
being a part of changing literacy within Australia- let's start using a Fresh Start to Literacy
. you
Read
Australia ( Queensland) offers free information
for parents and teachers
- how
to teach children to read quickly
& effectively using methods that
are proven to work even with children
who have dyslexia and other learning difficulties
Are you passionate about children, and in offering them opportunities to develop
in all areas, to their potential? Join us and be part of the
Read Australia™ team! Contact us with your experiences and qualifications
- although full
training is provided where necessary.
Help us to spread the word! Keeping the teaching of reading and spelling simple - Kiss PhoniX™ |
