Teaching Beginning Reading: some useful curriculum guidelines

The Executive Summary of the 2004 Australian National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy states that “Underlying this report … for the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy is the conviction that effective literacy teaching, and of reading in particular, should be grounded in findings from rigorous evidence-based research”.

The Report goes on to say that “The evidence is clear, whether from research, good practice observed in schools,  advice from submissions to the Inquiry, consultations, or from Committee members’ own individual experiences, that direct systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read. Findings from the research evidence indicate that all students learn best when teachers adopt an integrated approach to reading that explicitly teaches phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary knowledge and comprehension.”

In this respect, both the 1997 California English Language Arts Content Standards – Curriculum Frameworks, and the 1999 The National Curriculum for England, Key stages 1- 4, provide clear and comprehensive guidelines for the initial teaching of reading.

Teachers may find it useful to compare the sections on beginning reading in these two curriculum documents, with the information on beginning reading provided in the new Australian curriculum. The Australian curriculum seems lacking in the provision of clear and explicit guidelines in terms of listing the age and stage skill outcomes that students are expected to achieve in order to develop effective reading skills in the first year(s) of school.