New ACU literacy research centre focus on teaching teachers

Teachers, principals, teaching aides and staff from local schools joined pre-service teachers from ACU at the one of the first events of the university's new Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy.

COVID periods of remote learning, and a difficult return to the classroom for some, have highlighted the literacy struggles of many students and the new centre is designed to pull together the best research and evidence based practices to help students succeed in reading and writing.

"The traditional idea is that everybody learns differently, therefore we need to teach every child differently ... whereas the message of this evidence is really that we know how children learn to read and some children will need a lot more exposure or practice than others," said Dr Tina Daniel, a researcher and lecturer in the new centre.

"There's still a huge amount to learn but what we do know we should be doing well. We have seen poor results in the past because schools have believed that you can teach literacy in any way and that's not exactly true ... there's a lot of evidence we can use to improve."

Dr Daniel said COVID had been devastating for many children.

"It's difficult for them to learn, to do group work or be in the classroom or cope with the social aspect of learning, being among others and collaborating which is so important for learning," she said.

The goal of the September 2 conference is not only to share research results and the latest evidence based practice to boost student literacy, but to also introduce pre-service teachers to research and to school leaders.

"They are very dedicated, very talented and are really going to make big change and we need to support them with the best evidence-based practice," she said.

"I introduce them straight up at the conference because I want as many teachers and principals to speak to them. You never know if there are jobs available at these schools - we need to expose these wonderful (pre-service teachers) to local schools and show them off."

Final year teaching student Ruby Anderson, who hopes to become an early years primary teacher, was excited to be part of the conference.

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"As someone about to become a teacher, I'm very excited to learn about all the new ways literacy can be taught and what new practices are best. I'm hoping to get some really great literacy knowledge and skills," she said.

Ms Anderson has just started applying for teaching jobs for 2024 and said meeting local teachers and principals would be of great benefit.

Dr Daniel said teachers were increasingly turning to research to improve classroom practice.

"Teachers are really starting to embrace science and research and understanding that there's all this evidence out there they can tap into, but it can be overwhelming."

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