Learning Difficulties Australia

Current Issues

Professor Maggie Snowling, President of St John's College Oxford and Professor of Psychology at the University of Oxford, recently visited Australia and spoke at the Australian National University on ‘Dyslexia, Language and Learning to Read’ on 25^th July, 2017, to a sold out crowd.

Additional information on Professor Snowling’s esteemed career and research, and details of her Australian ANU presentation can be viewed here. 

LDA is very grateful to Professor Snowling, and the ANU, for granting permission to provide an audio of this event for LDA.

National Year 1 Phonics Screen

The Federal Education Minister, Senator Simon Birmingham, announced a "Phonics Screen" check for Year 1 students. Research supports evidence-based reading instruction and specifically, the explicit teaching of phonics in the early years of school.

LDA strongly supports this federal initiative as an opportunity for early identification and lifting the performance of struggling beginner readers. Click here to see DDOLL network letter of endorsement.

Click here to read more about the Phonics Screen and phonics research resources.

Effective Teaching

The Centre for Independent Studies published Read About It: Scientific Evidence for Effective Teaching of Reading by Kerry Hempenstall, edited by Jennifer Buckingham, focusing on the large and rigorous body of scientific evidence from the 1960’s to 2015, identifying the key elements of high quality reading instruction and demonstrating that explicit instruction methods are the most effective way of teaching reading, especially for novice readers and children at-risk of reading failure. Available at: https://www.cis.org.au/publications/research-reports/read-about-it-scientific-evidence-for-effective-teaching-of-reading 

Click here to Productivity Commission Report National Education Evidence Base, and a research article on High Performing Primary Schools: what do they have in Common?

LDA Position Statement - Approaches to Reading Instruction

LDA Supports approaches to reading instruction that adopt an explicit structured approach to the teaching of reading and are consistent with the scientific evidence as to how children learn to read and how best to teach them.
Click here to read LDA's Position Statement as published in the LDA Bulletin.
Click here for an extended version of LDA's Position Statement with substantiating references.

Interventions to Remediate Learning Disorders

Efficacy research review of current LD brain changing interventions by Auckland University’s Centre for Brain Research and School of Psychology, provides an objective overview of a number of popular brain-training interventions.
Click here to read this 2015 report.

Is Reading Recovery failing the New Zealand Literacy Strategy - what is the evidence?

Click here for the recently published NSW evaluation of Reading Recovery and relevant Reading Recovery resources.
Click here for an excellent 08/02/16 interview on Radio National with Professor James Chapman: "Is Reading Recovery Working?"
To hear LDA’s President Dr Lorraine Hammond’s 15/02/16 interview on Radio National in relation to teaching reading systematically and effectively, Click here

The National Curriculum

Click here to see LDA's submission or click here to see the Review.

Summer 2017 issue of LDA Bulletin now FREE to download!

Take advantage of LDA’s special offer to non-members of LDA to download the Summer 2017 issue of the LDA Bulletin. Click here to download.
Members of LDA can access back issues of the Bulletin from the Members Only section of this website. To join LDA, click here.