From: The Conversation May 1, 2026 by Karen Stollznow …Reading scrambled words has much less to do with a magical “rule” about first and last letters, and much more to do with how our brains use context, pattern recognition and prediction. We don’t read letter by...
Keyword: Reading
One of the greatest invisible tragedies’: is the loss of childhood imagination inevitable?
Murray B. J. (2026, May 11). The Guardian (An edited extract from Childhood by Brendan James Murray (Picador Australia). "We have created the most stifling and sanitised imaginative space conceivable for children, says teacher Brendan James Murray. Today true...
Story Dogs: Unleashing a new chapter on learning
from SchoolNews by Bronte Tomkins May 2026 Story Dogs is an Australia-wide program that sees volunteers bring their dogs to primary schools where children can read to them in a private, non-judgmental and fun setting. It was established with the intention of improving...
Phonics Plus does the new Victorian approach to reading miss differentiation and meaning- making?
Nelson, N. (2025, April,14) Edu Research Matters. This short, thoughtful post was published in April 2025 in the AARE Blog, Edu Research Matters. It scrutinises the new Phonics Plus lesson plans provided to teachers by the Victorian Government. The author, Naomi...
What can quantitative analyses tell us about the national impact of the phonics screening check?
Campbell, T. & Kelly, J. (2024, Nov, 5). Education Policy Institute The research conducted by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) is on the impact of the Phonics Screening Check (PSC). It has used national census data for all children in year 1 in England and is...
Teaching phonics ‘first’ is not new
We need to focus on meeting the needs of individual children in helping them learn to read rather than teaching ‘a method of reading’ (Reid, 2006, p.16). No one method can be the ‘right’ method for all children – quality teachers will draw on a diverse range of strategies and approaches to teach to the diverse needs of the children in their classrooms.
A Note About Fact Checks
The Foundation Committee has developed the following set of principles to help you evaluate information about learning and literacy.
Fact Check on Defining Effective Reading
Continued and often heated debates about how teachers and parents can best help young children learn to read are closely related to different definitions of, and understandings about, what effective reading is. This Fact Check discusses two approaches to defining effective reading and argues that it is imperative to adopt a definition of reading that privileges meaning-making.
Fact Check on Clarifying a Balanced Literacy Approach
Recently in press articles, some commentators have provided a misleading view of what many systems, schools and educators know as a ‘balanced literacy approach’ claiming it does not attend adequately to phonics instruction. It is important that the expertise of those teachers and school leaders who are effectively using a balanced literacy approach is not undermined.
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