Almost half of all Australians aged 15-74 years had literacy skills below the level required to participate effectively in our society, according to a 2008 study from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The Victorian Auditor-General has noted that efforts to improve the literacy achievement have done little to improve the average achievement of students across the state, despite an investment of $1.19 billion in the six years prior to the completion of the study in 2009.
The report was also critical of the failure to assess the effectiveness of the key elements of its approach to literacy, for example, the Reading Recovery intervention for year one students.
Producing failure
The initial teaching of reading continues to follow a discredited model, and misteaching continues to produce an unacceptably high failure rate among students.
The main reason is that our system has ignored the enormous amount of research that can offer a solution to our literacy problems. This point was made in the 2005 Report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy.
Some of this research shows us how our brains react to different teaching approaches.
Examining the brain
When functional MRI brain imaging is used to examine what is occurring when someone is reading, good readers are seen to activate several places on the brain’s left hemisphere. These areas are used co-operatively to convert letters into sounds, and then to fit the sounds together to make words we know.
Flourishing readers have realised that the alphabet’s letters are symbols intended to evoke those sounds, and they have learned how the sounds are blended to build words.
One of these left-brain regions (parieto-temporal area) is employed in sounding out words.
Building blocks
Over time, as young readers perform this sounding-out of written words, they start to build a model of that word in another section of the brain (occipito-temporal area).
After they’ve sounded a word correctly several times, their model progressively develops into a replica of the printed word. It shows the way the word is pronounced, the way it is spelt, and what it means.
These various features become bonded together so that seeing the word evokes its meaning in addition to its pronunciation.
Readers clarify and store these models in this second region of the left brain. When that familiar word is subsequently seen in print, it is routed to this second region, and its recognition is automatic and instant – in a period briefer than a heartbeat.
When this process occurs regularly, students begin to display rapid, effortless reading rather than the earlier, slower, sounding-out strategy.
Sounding it out
It is tempting to suggest that children should not be taught to sound out, because it isn’t the way skilled readers respond to print.
But, what brain science has demonstrated is that you don’t access this second fast-acting region without initially building up the first region.
Once children latch on to the logic of our alphabetic language, it doesn’t take many soundings-out to create the firm links necessary, but some children require more practice than others.
As this process continues words that look similar to now-known words are converted to models much more quickly.
Slower progress may relate to either genetics or inadequate experiences, including unhelpful teaching.
A different part of the brain
Those who struggle to read appear not to use these productive brain regions for reading. Instead, they create an alternative neural pathway.
It is purely a compensatory strategy involving the visual centres of the right hemisphere – looking at words as if they were pictures.
Little activity is observed in the phonological areas of the left hemisphere where capable readers’ activity is dominant.
The brains of people who can’t sound out words look different – there is less blood flow to the language centres of the brain.
If this sequence (from sounding out to whole word recognition) is not adequately taught, some children will still figure it out for themselves.
However, too many will be forced to employ less rapid and accurate systems, such as prediction from a story’s context, guessing from pictures or the first letter, or trying to memorise every word.
Developing experiences
We now understand that the brain responds to multiple similar experiences. These stimulate activity in particular areas, building connections in and between those active brain regions.
That is how practice makes permanent.
Practising productive strategies forms and strengthens the optimal connections that stimulate subsequent reading development.
In the same way, routinely engaging in ineffective strategies also builds circuits in the brain, but circuits that are second-rate for reading.
These routines are not easy to break when students grow older, perhaps because particularly between ages five and ten a pruning process erases under-used neural cells.
Catch them when young
Forming neural links for language is relatively easy up to about age six, and though achievable after that time, requires much more effort. That is why effective initial teaching is so important.
Among those struggling readers, there are teaching strategies that can alter the inefficient pattern of brain activation. Studies have indicated that about 60 hours of careful daily phonics teaching alters the way the brain responds to print.
Inefficient right-hemisphere activity diminishes, and left-hemisphere activity increases. Subsequent MRI images appear much more like those of good readers. The measured reading outcomes include increased fluency and comprehension.
A taxing effort
The brain imaging studies have also shown how difficult and exhausting is the task of reading for struggling students. They use up to five times as much energy when reading as do fluent readers. It is not surprising that they prefer not to read.
Slow early literacy development usually predicts a progressive decline in academic progress across the primary and secondary years. Such students increasingly lose access to the curriculum, and many become early school-leavers.
The 2005 Australian NITL report called for a renewed emphasis on the phonological approach to beginning reading, in which children take their first steps toward skilled reading by breaking words into sounds and syllables.
This can make a huge difference to the many students for whom reading is unnecessarily difficult, whether the cause involves brain anomalies (very few) or inappropriate teaching (the vast majority). Recent inquiries in the US and Britain reached similar conclusions.
At a time when real reform is possible, it is unfortunate that some politicians and teacher organisations decry both the need for change and the strong evidence upon which the recommendations are based.
Our children’s future is at stake. And it’s time to move on this.
Join the conversation
Comments (11)
Tina Pickford
(logged in via LinkedIn)
A fantastic article on the link between auditory processing and reading. This brings me back to the "National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy" report by the late Ken Rowe & team, in which it was recommended that "‘fences’ be built at the top of the ‘cliff’ in preference to the provision of belated and costly ‘ambulance services’ at the bottom", and highlighted auditory processing capacity as a necessary prerequisite skill for all children.
http://www.soniclearning.com.au
Natoya Rose
Occupational Therapist (logged in via email @gmail.com)
Unfortunate I think you, along with many others are missing the point entirely. Why is it that the function of the child never seems to enter the equation. I find it unfortunate that when what you are proposing is utilised that children are then trained into swapping out visual processing (which must remain a priority in order for function to be maintained or developed) with auditory processing. The truth is that functional children do not struggle with literacy and when their functional deficits…
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Emma Hartnell-Baker
Early Years Education Advisor (logged in via email @readingbysix.com.au)
Great article! I shall share it on the Read Australia facebook page and link to it on the new 'Reading By Six' in Australia campaign site!
It's definitely time we started to bring about change across Australia, focusing on the early years. We need to focus much more on a preventative approach to reading failure, and the only way to do that is by exceptional teaching in the early years that meets the needs of every child- regardless of your own personal 'philosophy' about how to teach reading. We need to fucus on learning outcomes. If all children aren't reading by six then let's look at what needs to change. Informative and accurate information is the best way to start. So thank you!
Kerry Hempenstall
(Lecturer in Psychology at RMIT University)
There are those who believe that learning to read is as natural as learning to speak, and thus simply reading to children will be sufficient to evoke reading from the child. This turns out to be an unhelpful perspective, as first the assumption is wrong, and second the evidence tells us that one needs to do rather more than simply read for most children to get the hang of it.
Hearing children read is a further step, but it too of itself has little impact for most children. What has been shown…
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Sara Davies
(Senior Research Fellow, International Relations at Griffith University)
I also found this article very interesting and helpful. I wonder if the emphasis also needs to be on how parents read to their children? If half of Australian adults have difficulty reading then their children may be casualties of this? I understand that how reading is taught in the classroom is important, and why the piece focuses on this aspect. But as a parent, I am often worried about whether I am reading to my child in a way that is of use to him, i.e. teaching him how to read for himself. I am not the only parent who worries about this. I worry about this because I think parents should be doing the 'prep' work before our children go to school, but are we helping or not?! In sum, I would appreciate knowing how I should be reading to my child because I am under the belief that I will am just as important (if not more so) than the teachers in my child's reading experience. Thanks again.
Sara Davies
(Senior Research Fellow, International Relations at Griffith University)
Sorry for the error in my last sentence. Reveals why I should worry about my role as a parent!
Darren Stops
(logged in via Facebook)
Dear Kerry,
This is a really clear and concise discussion, and I wiull be spreading it far and wide.
The Science has been "in" on this for decades, and yet we still have huge numbers of what Max Colheart calls "Instructional Casualties" : children who were not taught the phonological strategies that the evidence shows is fundamental to learning to read.
The 2005 NITL report is now 6 years old, which is also a good time to establish print-sound correspondence. Implementation of the recommendations should be a national priorty - it's a shame there's no votes in it.
Regards
Darren Stops
Dee Ummkopf
Innocent Bystander (logged in via email @yahoo.com.au)
Well said, Darren.
This report is now SEVEN YEARS OLD. Why would anyone believe anything will come of it. I wonder how many children have dropped out of school in the last seven years as a result of specific learning disabilities. And how many will do so in the coming 7 years?
True, there are no votes in it and no funding. I can't see that changing in the near future. The UK, the US, Canada and New Zealand have recognised dyslexia (http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/seeking-a-new-deal-on-dyslexia-20100528-wl5z.html) and the spectrum of associated learning disabilities. Why can we not achieve the same in Australia? It seems it is not the Lucky Country for everyone.
I won't hold my breath waiting for national recognition of dyslexia as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act. But I might still die waiting.
Phillip Ebrall
(Professor of Chiropractic at Central Queensland University)
Very nicely written, Kerry. As a grandparent, I appreciate your contribution.
Liz Dunoon
Author of Helping Children With Dyslexia (logged in via email @helpingchildrenwithdyslexia.com)
Dear Kerry, I love your article. It is simple to read and easy to understand. I endorse all the recommendations that are in it having just spent two years studying phonics and the previous eight studying dyslexia. I wish I had learn t this at teachers college. Thank you for writing it. I shall share it with all on my database, many of whom are parents and teachers supporting children/students with dyslexia. KIndest regards Liz Dunoon
www.helpingchildrenwithdyslexia.com
Kevin Wheldall
(Professor of Education at Macquarie University)
Well said Kerry. This is the clearest exposition I have read on this topic. I shall be recommending it widely.