The teaching change this school made that supercharged its students' reading skills
It's been labelled a preventable tragedy. A new report has found one third of Australian students can't read properly, costing the economy 40 billion dollars. But the report says a change in teaching styles could significantly help.
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00:00 Where can I hear the 'or' sound?
00:03 At the end of the word.
00:06 At Churchill Primary School, a reading revolution is changing young lives.
00:11 When I didn't know how to read it made it harder to like enjoy it.
00:16 I usually talk to my mum, like I'm so excited to go to school and learn new things.
00:21 When the program started it helped me lots more.
00:24 I could read a paragraph and before that I could just read a couple of words.
00:29 Two thirds of the students here used to be below national reading standards.
00:35 Now everyone meets or exceeds them.
00:37 Where's the story set?
00:38 The school used to teach the whole language method.
00:41 It claims reading is easy and students can teach themselves by being exposed to books.
00:48 Now it uses structured literacy where teachers systematically sound out words and break reading
00:54 down into bite-sized lessons.
00:56 I wish I had had this training at uni because you know for the first ten years of my teaching
01:02 career I feel like I've failed the kids.
01:04 The story's set in Afghanistan.
01:06 Classroom behaviour has improved too.
01:09 The kids are performing much higher academically but also their engagement, their attitude
01:13 towards school.
01:15 Teachers are enjoying teaching a lot more because the kids are being successful.
01:19 Now a major think tank has called for the rest of Australia's 10,000 schools to take
01:24 a similar journey.
01:25 It says too many persist with teaching styles not supported by evidence.
01:29 This is a national tragedy and as I said it's a preventable tragedy.
01:34 And an expensive one.
01:36 Lead researcher Dr Jordana Hunter puts the cost at $40 billion.
01:41 That's a really significant cost.
01:44 Back at Churchill Primary they're confident the next generation can avoid the traps of
01:49 the past.
01:50 I know lots of kids from my school that struggle with reading and that approach, you know,
01:55 those kids might not have dropped out of school.
01:59 Truly transformative lessons.
02:01 Thank you.
02:01 [END]