The Teaching Improvement Project

Course Content
Module 1 Reading an Introduction – The Big Picture.
‘Reading has the power to change lives. It plays an essential role in learning, securing a job and being an active and engaged member of society. Reading provides us with information, knowledge, and makes us aware of people and places beyond our immediate circles. Learning foundational reading skills supports wellbeing and can translate to a love of reading and literature. As so much of our world rapidly changes around us, learning to read remains one of the most essential outcomes of schooling’. (Education Queensland, 2023. Reading Position Statement.) What Will You Learn? In this module you will explore how reading has been taught in the past and what research and evidence has informed current recommended teaching models. You will explore the complexities of learning to read. Why learning to read is difficult and the impact that low levels of literacy have on society. What the Big 6 or 5 Pillars (National Reading Panel) How the brain learns to read (Stanilas DeHaene) Ehri’s Stages of Reading Development and understand the process of Orthographic Mapping and the Alphabetic Principle. Self Teaching (David Share) Key Reading Frameworks – The Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tumner), Scarborough’s Reading Rope (Hollis Scarborough), and The Four Part Processing Model (Seidenberg and McClelland) The key components of Structured Literacy and how this differs from previous approaches to teaching reading. At the conclusion of this unit of work we will dive deep into the teaching of reading through the lens of the Simple View of Reading’.
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Reading
The State Of Reading Today
The Science of Reading (SoR)
The Big 6 or 5 Pillars of Reading
How the brain learns to read
Ehri’s Stages of Reading Development and understand the process of Orthographic Mapping and the Alphabetic Principle.
Key Reading Frameworks (Simple View of Reading & Scarborough’s Reading Rope)
The Key Components of Structured Literacy
Module 2 – The Foundational Skills: Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness & Phonics
In this module you will learn about the foundational word recognition skills of Scarborough’s Reading Rope and why their acquisition to a level of automaticity is essential to becoming a skilled reader. You will learn about the phonological and orthographical processing systems, how they develop and how they should be taught and assessed.
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Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness
Research – Why phonemic awareness is a critical component of instruction.
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness Skills
The importance of clear and precise phoneme articulation
Lesson Planning and Structure
How Does Phonics Fit In?
The English Orthography, Australian English, Standard Australian English (SAE0.
The Alphabetic Principle, The Alphabetic Code, & Alphabetic Code Charts
4 types of phonics instruction – synthetic, analogy, embedded, analytic
Structured Synthetic Phonics – Teaching the word level reading through a systematic, explicit code-based instruction
Sight Word Lexicons, High Frequency Words and How to teach them!
The relationship of reading, spelling and writing
The characteristics of high-quality instructional materials
Decodable Texts and when to move on from decodables
How to assess, screen and use student data to inform teaching
Glossary of Terms
Module 3 – Reading Fluency
In this module you will explore the often overlooked but vital role that fluency plays in the development of a skilled reader.
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The Essential Components of Reading Fluency
Evidence based fluency instruction and strategies to support fluency acquisition
Assessing, Screening and Monitoring Fluency
Reading disfluency and struggling readers
Other Resources, Research and Further Professional Learning
Module 4 – Oral Language & Vocabulary
In this module you will learn how vocabulary develops, and how evidenced based vocabulary instruction can support language comprehension.
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How oral language development is the foundation of vocabulary development
Vocabulary Instruction: Why is it so important
Evidence Based Vocabulary Instruction – direct, explicit, effective
How to screen, monitor and assess oral language and vocabulary
How do we bet support our struggling readers – Vocabulary Instruction
Module 5 – Comprehension: The Skilled Reader
In this module you will explore the complex nature of the comprehension strand of Scarborough’s Reading Rope and build your understanding of the essential components required for skilled reading development.
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Meaning Creation, Mental models and Schemas
Layered Model of Effective Comprehension Instruction
Language Comprehension versus Reading Comprehension
The subskills of Language Comprehension
Process versus Product
What causes poor comprehension
Strategy Instruction Within Content Learning
Cognitive Overload and Instructional Considerations
Assessment and monitoring of Language and Reading Comprehension
Module 6 – Putting It Altogether: When Reading Science Meets Practice
In this module you will learn how a structured literacy approach to the teaching of reading can fit into a literacy block and how it can be supported across all Key Learning Areas (KLA’s). You will learn how and when different forms of assessment and screeners can be used to inform, monitor and measure student success.
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The reading and writing connection
Classroom routines
Lower and Upper Literacy Block examples
Multitiered Tiered Intervention/ Instruction
Identifying student needs and reading deficits
Monitoring Student Development and Measuring Success
How to Teach Reading
About Lesson

High Quality Reading Instruction

Research has proven that the introduction of quality Tier 1 instruction in PA and Phonics in early years classrooms has had a significant impact on reading skill acquisition. Early identification of reading deficits through monitoring, universal screening and diagnostic assessments allows for targeted Tier 2 and 3 interventions.

But What is High Quality Tier 1 Instruction?

The Reading League, Ochre, Science of Reading Australia, Auspeld, Dyslexia Speld Foundation DSF, & Language Disabilities Australia (LDA) etc., have all shared Science of Reading (SoR) aligned programs that provide comprehensive instruction in foundational skills, however there are many more being sold to schools, and as educators we must choose wisely.

Programs, whether there are bought or created by a school must include:

  • A comprehensive scope and sequence of instruction.
  • Explicit Instruction – PA skills are part of Structured Synthetic Phonics instruction. Nothing is left to guess! Foundational skills are explicitly taught, guided by a detailed scope and sequence, and the lessons are cumulative and comprehensive.
  • Regular opportunities to practice apply an and consolidate their newly learnt code knowledge by reading supportive Decodable.
  • Decodable texts which allow students to play safely within the parameters of their learning, so that they can achieve success. This does not mean that they are not exposed to other literature rich, informative and instructional texts for varied purpose.
  • Monitoring to inform practice and intervention
  • Both encoding and decoding opportunities in lessons. These skills have a reciprocal relationship and support ongoing development. Research has shown that handwriting lessons help consolidate phonological and phonic knowledge and writing in response to reading has a positive impact upon language & reading comprehension. (Moats and Tolman, LETRS, 2019)
  • Intervention lessons for phonemic awareness and phonics should not stand alone. These skills should be revisited as part of a whole mini lesson which; focuses on the identified skill, provides opportunity to practice applying the skill within connected texts (Decodable) and transferring this knowledge to spelling and encoding.  (We will discuss this further in Module 6).

 

 

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