Grattan Institute expert to present at Teaching Matters, National Science of Learning Summit 2024

Catholic Education Tasmania’s Teaching Matters, National Science of Learning Summit 2024 will feature many expert presenters, including Grattan Institute Education Program Director Dr Jordana Hunter. The Summit will be held from March 24-26 in Hobart, where Dr Hunter will discuss the Grattan Institute recommendations for  reading instruction and proficiency - as detailed in the recently released report entitled The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success.

In this report by the independent national research and public policy think-tank, schools were advised to move away from the “whole language” approach, which became popular in the 1970s. The institute recommends a “structured literacy” approach instead, with a strong focus on “phonics” from the early years. This pedagogical approach is central to CET’s Insight into Learning program, which is focused around the Science of Reading and Learning, equipping teachers with scientific, evidence-based, high-impact teaching practices.

Launched in late 2022, Insight into Learning has now been embraced by 31 of our CET schools. One focus of the report is around the importance of phonics education from the early years, which is crucial to the reading success for young students. “Children need to master the foundational mechanics of reading in the early years of school so they can sound out unfamiliar words they see on the page and, over time, store these in their long-term memory for increasingly fluent reading,” Dr Hunter said. Dr Hunter said that learning to read is not a natural process and students should be explicitly taught the key skills of reading. “In the early years, this means that students should learn to sound out the letters of each word, and teachers should read rich literature aloud to their class,” Dr Hunter said. “Once students have mastered decoding new words, they still need explicit teaching to build up their background knowledge and vocabulary, so they can comprehend what they read – the ultimate goal of reading. Screening and monitoring of student progress also allows schools to target additional catch-up support to students.” 

Explicit instruction is at the core of CET’s Science of Reading and Learning approach, which involves breaking down reading and class work into smaller sequential tasks that are easier to achieve and to build upon, and with frequent check-ins for student understanding. “Science of Learning principles provide a framework for explicit instruction which considers cognitive load, and is based on a knowledge-rich curriculum that ensures exceptional educational experiences and deep learning for our young people,” Insight into Learning Project Leader Jennifer White said. “The high impact focus is about making every minute of the teaching count. The classroom instruction should be focused, the students should be wholly engaged with their learning, and the teachers should be constantly checking for understanding and re-teaching when necessary.”

Dr Hunter is looking forward to sharing findings from the Grattan Institute report at Teaching Matters 2024. The timing for this discussion is critical, with the report showing that a third of Australian children can’t read properly, and in a classroom of 24 students there would be eight who cannot read well. “Australia needs a reading revolution,” Dr Hunter said. “We need to transform the way we teach reading in school, so that every Australian child gets their best chance in life.”