The teaching change this school made that supercharged its students' reading skills

ABC NEWS (Australia)

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.

Transcript

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]

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