Prep to grade two students will learn to read using the back-to-basics phonics approach from 2025 where they will learn to 'decode' the sounds that different letters make.
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Academics, principals, education experts and parents have welcomed a state government announcement that all children will be taught to read using phonics after years of balanced literacy where children learn to read, in part, by identifying words from pictures.
But many Ballarat schools have already recognised the importance of phonics and been using the explicit teaching of letters and sounds into their literacy programs for years.
Education minister Ben Carroll announced on Thursday, June 13 that all government school students from prep to grade two will be taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach from 2025, with a minimum of 25 minutes a day of explicit teaching.
What is phonics?
- Phonics teaches students the sounds that letters, or combinations of letters, represent starting with individual letters and working up to blending letters and sounds together to produce words.
- It is known as the code of language.
- The English language has 44 sounds made up of the 26 letters of the alphabet.
- The teaching of phonics is explicit and often involves children reading books, practicing sounds, playing games and singing songs including a particular sound.
In systematic synthetic phonics, students learn using a structured approach that explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters to read words, starting with individual letters and their sounds and working up to blending letters and sounds together to produce words.
Only one in four are learning to read well
ACU Ballarat literacy expert Dr Tina Daniel, a lecturer in the university's new Australian Centre for the Advancement of Literacy, said the science of literacy shows learning to read needs to be done in a structured way that helps children understand that print is a code for language.
"It's being explicit about how we teach and not assuming that any child will just pick it up," she said.
"For about 40 or 50 years reading has mainly been taught with a balanced literacy approach and that approach assumed that children would learn to read if we just put fabulous books in front of them and ... the kind of strategies they needed was to look at a picture and guess.
"That's just not successful for most readers and it's showing up in Australian data that only one in four students are learning to read well enough to really be able to read to learn."
Dr Daniel said learning to read was about having a foundation in a common set of skills.
"There are some skills we all need to learn. It's always been said every child learns differently but that actually belies the fact that there are a set of skills all children need to learn and know to be able to read."
That approach also better supports those who might be struggling, or have learning difficulties.
"We all need to learn the same skills and some of us will learn more easily than others. The point is that some children will just need more practice at the same skill. It's not that we need to teach them differently, they are a set of skills we know leads to efficient and effective reading."
As part of the state school rollout there will be common lesson plans to ensure all children are learning the same thing.
"The reforms and the rollout of the lesson plans will reduce teacher workload and equip them with high quality, best practice materials so they can spend more time with their students and less time planning," Mr Carroll said.
How is phonics working in Ballarat schools?
Ballarat's catholic primary schools have been moving towards an explicit instruction, phonics-based approach to teaching reading as part of a structured literacy initiative since January 2023.
"There is an overwhelming body of research supporting an explicit, sequential approach to teaching reading and literacy - of which phonics is an integral part - as the most effective method, and especially for students who struggle with learning," said Catholic Education Ballarat executive director Tom Sexton.
"Support has been provided to schools and teachers across the diocese to make a strategic shift to a more structured literacy approach, informed by the sciences of reading and learning. Educators have participated in professional learning in how the brain learns to read, and the latest research findings from neurology, linguistics, psychology, speech pathology and education."
At Mount Blowhard Primary School, where the science of education has been a focus in recent years, phonics has been part of an explicit teaching strategy for reading, writing and maths.
Last year it hosted 38 professionals from all educational sectors who came to see how teachers implement the science of learning, the science of reading, structured literacy and explicit direct instruction in the classroom.
As part of the strategy, children use whiteboards to write down answers so the teacher can check for understanding - and reteach immediately if pupils are struggling.
Alfredton Primary principal Laurel Donaldson said the school had "always recognised the importance and benefits to students of the explicit teaching of phonics," and use many programs to support phonics instruction in whole class teaching.
Speech Pathology Australia also welcomed the move to embed systematic synthetic phonics into the Victorian curriculum.
"We've been advocating for the introduction of systematic synthetic phonics into the curriculum for a long time," said SPA president Kathryn McKinley. "A child's early years at primary school are critical for learning to read and this change means that no child will be left behind."
