Dr Jennifer Buckingham, Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, welcomes the proposed changes to national curriculum, and particularly the strong focus on addressing the poor levels of literacy and numeracy in Australia’s children.
“After years of dedicated advocacy through CIS I am very pleased to see a strong commitment to a renewed focus on teaching literacy and numeracy in the early years of school”, Dr Buckingham said today.
“The CIS has been at the forefront of the campaign for better teaching of literacy and numeracy. We have consistently stripped away the politics and the ideology to focus on what works for kids. We are delighted to see the curriculum review adopting our advice along with that of the best literacy researchers in Australia.”
Most recently in February this year, CIS published a collection of talks based on Dr Buckingham’s paper ‘Why Jaydon Can’t Read: The Triumph of Ideology over Evidence in Teaching Reading’ published in the Spring 2013 issue of CIS’ Policy magazine.
Described by Phonics International as a “Brilliant, fundamentally important paper from Australia” [http://www.phonicsinternational.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=564&sid=454f0339f82db2a501c2ed5601669a44], the ‘Jayden’ papers showed
- students were not being provided with the most effective evidence-based reading instruction
- billions of dollars of public money have been spent trying to improve literacy levels of school students over the last decade in Australia, and yet hundreds of thousands of students are barely literate.
- Almost all children can learn to read with effective, evidence-based reading instruction. Unfortunately, many teachers still use unproven methods based on whole-language philosophy or ad hoc ‘balanced literacy’ programs.
- Pre-service teacher education has not prepared teachers in effective reading instruction strategies, and government policy has not promoted the use of evidence-based teaching methods.
“Instruction that is explicit and systematic can help all kids learn to read. It is particularly effective for children most at risk of falling behind – those from low-SES and indigenous communities”.
Dr Jennifer Buckingham is the author of the policy monographsBoy Troubles (2000), Families, Freedom and Education (2001), Schools in the Spotlight (2003), and Schools of Thought: A Collection of Articles on Education (2009), School Funding on a Budget (2014), Why Jaydon Can’t Read: The Triumph of Ideology over Evidence in Teaching Reading (2013) as well as numerous papers on literacy in peer-reviewed academic journals. Her PhD was on literacy and socioeconomic disadvantage.
Dr Buckingham is available for comment. Please contact Karla Pincott on 0411 759 934 or