[ad_1]
news, local-news,
Low levels of literacy among Tasmanian students has led Catholic Education Tasmania to implement its new education initiative that will see teachers put through intensive training this week. Most recent Tasmanian NAPLAN results showed significant decreases in student attainment from primary school to high school, resulting in almost half of Year 9 students being unable to express themselves in the written form, and up to 28.5 per cent not meeting reading benchmarks. Catholic Education Tasmania executive director Gerard Gaskin said the Literate Learners for Life initiative arose after growing teacher concerns about student literacy, across particular grades and among particular cohorts. He said all students from kindergarten to Year 12 would benefit from the latest literacy focus. “We are concerned that there has been reduced levels of literacy, particularly in reading comprehension and phonics among our students, and we have made a commitment as a whole of system to do something about it,” Dr Gaskin said. “We are committed to regular evaluation and assessment and feedback for the students and for their parents so that we are able to track students literacy improvement in real time, and across the system,” he said. “There are many [causative] factors. One is that children are spending a great deal of time on screens, and they are not getting as much conversation with parents and peers. This means they are coming to school at that disadvantage.” This week teachers and teaching assistants from Catholic schools across Tasmania will be participating in an intensive three day course, hearing from world-class education experts. The Catholic school system has committed to have a trained and dedicated literacy practice leader in every one of its 38 schools. “We will be focusing on a number of key things. One is the teaching of phonics, the other is explicit teaching of students in the skills of literacy, particularly vocabulary, spelling and writing.” Dr Gaskin said the move would be welcomed by parents as it was a positive step to revise the way reading is taught. He said phonics reading as now recognised as best practice for reading. “There has been an ongoing argument in education as to whether phonics is a good or bad thing. The scientific evidence now reveals that phonics is fundamental to all learning to read .. and is highly effective,” he said. “We now have a better understanding of how the brain works, and the cognitive architecture of learning, and have found that phonics is the fastest and most efficient way of learning to read.”
/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/NX9MbAzZyG5Vh8eWtwPQfX/4ed0a274-0e73-4d1f-beed-f9a8f438d702.jpg/r3_0_1198_675_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
Low levels of literacy among Tasmanian students has led Catholic Education Tasmania to implement its new education initiative that will see teachers put through intensive training this week.
Most recent Tasmanian NAPLAN results showed significant decreases in student attainment from primary school to high school, resulting in almost half of Year 9 students being unable to express themselves in the written form, and up to 28.5 per cent not meeting reading benchmarks.
Catholic Education Tasmania executive director Gerard Gaskin said the Literate Learners for Life initiative arose after growing teacher concerns about student literacy, across particular grades and among particular cohorts.
He said all students from kindergarten to Year 12 would benefit from the latest literacy focus.
“We are concerned that there has been reduced levels of literacy, particularly in reading comprehension and phonics among our students, and we have made a commitment as a whole of system to do something about it,” Dr Gaskin said.
“We are committed to regular evaluation and assessment and feedback for the students and for their parents so that we are able to track students literacy improvement in real time, and across the system,” he said.
“There are many [causative] factors. One is that children are spending a great deal of time on screens, and they are not getting as much conversation with parents and peers. This means they are coming to school at that disadvantage.”
This week teachers and teaching assistants from Catholic schools across Tasmania will be participating in an intensive three day course, hearing from world-class education experts.
The Catholic school system has committed to have a trained and dedicated literacy practice leader in every one of its 38 schools.
“We will be focusing on a number of key things. One is the teaching of phonics, the other is explicit teaching of students in the skills of literacy, particularly vocabulary, spelling and writing.”
Dr Gaskin said the move would be welcomed by parents as it was a positive step to revise the way reading is taught.
He said phonics reading as now recognised as best practice for reading.
“There has been an ongoing argument in education as to whether phonics is a good or bad thing. The scientific evidence now reveals that phonics is fundamental to all learning to read .. and is highly effective,” he said.
“We now have a better understanding of how the brain works, and the cognitive architecture of learning, and have found that phonics is the fastest and most efficient way of learning to read.”
[ad_2]
Source link