- Related consultation
Anonymous Submission 005
Related consultation – Teacher Education Expert Panel Consultation
Submitter information
Name Anonymous
Reform area 1: Strengthening initial teacher education programs to deliver confident, effective, classroom ready graduates.
Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities strengthen ITE to deliver confident, effective, classroom ready graduates?
Somewhat
Reform area 2: Strengthening the link between performance and funding of initial teacher education.
Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities provide a strengthened focus on improving the performance of ITE programs?
Somewhat
Reform area 3: Improving the quality of practical experience in teaching.
Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities improve the quality of practical experience?
Somewhat
Reform area 4: Improving postgraduate initial teacher education for mid-career entrants.
Q: To what extent would the proposed opportunities improve postgraduate programs to attract mid-career entrants?
Little
Feedback
I would like to say at the outset thank you for the opportunity to make a submission on this important topic. As I'm sure you're aware, and have probably read the Research Report, published in 2019 by Jennifer Buckingham and Linda Meeks, titled Short Changed: Preparation to Teach Reading in Initial Teacher Education. There is an enormous amount of work to be done to make up for lack of evidence based instruction in Higher Education to prepare teachers to teach literacy. The current teaching in ITE is over 30 years behind, with the exception of small pockets, which are doing the heavy lifting in this area, and deserve every bit of acknowledgement and support they receive, such as <de-identified>, with its Science of Language and Reading lab, which is breaking down the barriers between cognitive science and education.
Ironically, when I trained at over 30 years ago, I was inculcated with Literacy Education which not only set me up to fail students, and it was only due to my own efforts to learn about effective literacy practices that I began to teach children to read, a mere 5 years ago! Ultimately, you can't unlearn what you learn and this led on another journey altogether, which including working with highly disengaged students, using evidence based approaches, using the science of reading, and working in private practice. Every one of my private clients, from across a number of schools, has had the experience of early childhood teachers who could not help, (through no fault of their own) all advised parents with maladaptive, but widely subscribed 'solutions' which blamed the parent (not reading enough stories to the child) the child becoming frustrated, (acting out- which stops when children are taught to read) and usually included a referral to medical specialists (not proceeded with as the child learns to read and spell quickly when provided with evidence based instruction).
The medicalisation of reading difficulties, caused by poor instruction is well documented. The widespread problem is caused by 'dysteachia' and there is an urgent need for ITE to prepare teachers thoroughly to teach reading. Cognitive science informs us that 95% of students can be taught to read.
Let's get to the recommendations, in relation to the issues raised. Firstly, teaching students at ITE about how the brain works, cognitive load theory, etc is crucial. It is essential but does not go far enough here. Education needs to embrace many more important aspects of cognitive science, especially where reading and spelling is concerned. To be 'effective' it is essential that teachers know how to way up the evidence, to know about effect sizes, standard deviation, read the international reports, so that they can engage meaningfully in dialogue about curriculum and approaches. There needs to be far greater collaboration and breaking down of the silos that Education operates within, if teachers are to be truly 'effective' job ready professionals. Mark Seidenburg in his book, 'Language At The Speed of Sight,' clearly explains why this is.
The recommendations are also 'light on' in that they focus on teaching the big 5/6 components. This checklist approach will lead, has led to schools adopting programs which have no evidence, simply because they are one of the components identified. Phonemic Awareness is a perfect example of this. It has been commodified and sold as a package... such is the case with programs that teach 'Advanced Phonemic Awareness', usually with 'oral' only activities. There is no evidence to support this. The evidence is strongly in favour (and has been for a long time) preferencing phonemic awareness to be taught with letters.
When you teach PA with letters, you teach the essential skills of Blending and Segmenting sounds. These are essential skills, as is Phoneme Manipulation, and highly correlated to reading success. These skills are completely absent from the recommendations. Compare the literacy recommendations to the numeracy recommendations where a number of skills are required to be taught. There needs to be links made between cognitive load theory and how to apply this to beginner instruction in literacy. There is a need here to revisit, review and greatly enlarge upon the required teacher knowledge and skills in the recommendations for literacy.
Finally, let's hope that this Review doesn't go the same way as the Rowe Report, ' National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, of nearly 20 years ago, with the opportunities to ensure ITE was evidence based. A whole generation has missed out of evidence-based reading instruction. Time really is of the essence.
Thanks again for providing the opportunity to contribute this submission.