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LDA
updated
21 Oct 2010
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New National Curriculum
Follow the links from the LDA Homepage to The Australian Curriculum: English. We'd like to hear your views on the new curriculum, especially as it may affect the ways reading and writing are taught, particularly for children at risk of learning difficulties. |
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Jo Rogers
29 Apr 2010 |
I think THE CONTENT of the new English and Mathematics draft curriculum is good -
but the time frames that are expected for children to learn the skills is seriously flawed and impossible for most children to learn to mastery within those time frames.
ie Kindergarten levels should be preparatory - and the skills listed should be moved up to Year 1 - and each year level should be moved up to the following year, with provision set into Year 2 & 3 for more teaching of those skills for the c. 30% of children who need longer to learn those skills.
Severely dyslexic children may need a longer time to learn those fundamental skills.
The curriculum should allow for all children to learn the skills - not just those children who learn easily - otherwise the curriculum is discrimatory.
In the framing paper - stages of learning were given out - which I thought was very workable - but the shaping paper changed over to Year levels - which don't cater as well for individual differences in learning.
Some intelligent children who have nothing wrong with them just aren't ready for formal learning until the age of 6-7 years.
Curricula should cater for them, also.
If the issue of time frames isn't addressed - I think 30% of children will fail again - just for a different reason.
I also wonder if the writer of the English draft curriculum was so adament against phonemic awareness and phonics until the ALEA conference October 2009 that he gave a conference address - with PP presentations on the web site stating "Myths that no one believes - phonics" is capable of writing a good phonological processing curriculum?
If a phonics expert was to be pedantic - there are small errors in the draft and there should be much fuller explanations and examples given in the national curriculum.
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Margaret
29 Apr 2010 |
With reference to Jo's comments about timing of the curriculum, I believe the writers have a huge difficulty in working through this as long as school starting ages and timing are so variable from state to state. For example, in SA there are intakes every term for Reception for many schools, and most have at least 2 intakes a year without forming new classes. (Some schools have the numbers to form a new class mid-year and keep those children in Reception for 18 months; others send their mid-year intake on with the full-year students to Year 1 after 6 months in Reception, these being the children who were too young to start at the beginning of the year!) School starting ages are by no means uniform, and how is the first year of school defined? Qld's new Prep year (I believe) takes children from four and a half - is Prep regarded as a preschool or formal school year? I believe there is a lot of variation in the current perception of the Prep/Kindergarten/Reception year of schooling. |
| 27 May 2010 |
I agree that the curriculum is too pen and paper oriented for many children under seven. This limits the amount of language, music, dancing painting and other important ingredients of an early childhood education. We used to speak of "infants teachers" Many European countries do not start writing till 6 or 7 ( like Switzerland). This would let those wriggly boys be at the right stage for more formal lessons. Sometimes less is more. I have seen kindergarten children overladen with homework. They need a break. Have we lost common sense? |
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Jo Rogers
21 Oct 2010 |
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I looked at the web sites of English Teaching organizatins to see how their conferences and literature had changed with the national curriculum reforms.
I was honestly shocked to read the topics for recent conferences of ALEA and ETA - they were all whole language topics - not one topic on explicit teaching of literacy skills or phonological processing.
Then it got worse.
I looked at the conference papers and power point presentations.
Again - nearly all whole language content, with one paragraph in one presentation mentioning phonics.
No words about how to teach children to read or write.
One presentation was presented as if it was representing ACARA, COAG etc???
Another presented carefully edited text by Dr Rowe - as if they were following his report!!
Reading 'Helping Struggling Readers' would have been outlandish if it wasn't so serious for the children.
It was as if none of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Reading ! and the process of the National English Curriculum (ie all that work and money) had never happened.
I think the continued refusal to acknowledge need for reform and reform by a few powerful academics is totally unacceptable when the welfare of so many young children is at stake.
Jo Rogers | |
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