PROVEN METHODS OF LITERACY EDUCATION FOR VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS

Reading, writing and spelling are essential skills that our children will need throughout their lives and they deserve to be taught using the best evidence-based methods. 

Dyslexia Victoria Support (DVS) Reading Teachers Australia (RTA), Code Read Dyslexia Network (CR), Learning Difficulties Australia (LDA), Sharing Best Practice (SBP) and AUSPELD (inclusive of all State SPELD entities) call upon the Minister for Education, for the sake of our children, to remove programs such as Reading Recovery and Leveled Literacy Intervention from Victorian public schools.

DVS represent parents/carers and others who have been impacted by dyslexia. Approximately 20% of students are thought to have learning difficulties, including dyslexia, with 5% being severely affected.

Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty, where there are problems with accurate and fluent word reading and/or poor spelling. Persons with dyslexia can, however, learn to read, spell and write with appropriate educational support.  Measures that help dyslexics also help other children to read, write and spell: EFFECTIVE READING INSTRUCTION

Much money has been spent on literacy, but not necessarily in the right ways.  Reading Recovery is a literacy program widely used in Victorian schools that has been heavily criticised.  In 2017 the New South Wales government abandoned the compulsory use of Reading Recovery in government schools: LITERACY AND NUMERACY STRATEGY and DVS, RTA, LDA, AUSPELD, CR and SBP,  requested that the Victorian government do the same. 

In place of Reading Recovery, the Victorian government should provide access for ALL children to programs that use an explicit structured approach to the teaching of reading – see - LEARNING DIFFICULTIES AUSTRALIA (LDA) and the AUSPELD Understanding Learning Difficulties: a Practical Guide for Parents

Another program - the Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) - is also used in Victorian schools and is not supported by the current research evidence and must not continue to be funded by the Department of Education for use in Victorian government schools.

DVS, RTA, LDA, AUSPELD, CR and SBP urge the Victorian government:

• to seek advice on the research evidence relating to effective approaches to the teaching of initial reading from organisations such as DVS, RTA, LDA, AUSPELD, CR and SBP, and also from researchers and academics who have relevant expertise in this field of research; and
• to avoid practices which are not supported by the research evidence, including Reading Recovery and the Leveled Literacy Intervention, which do not conform to the principles of structured literacy programs and whose effectiveness has been called into question by the research evidence.