Mrs Experienced: Betty Smith

I’d like to thank the Australian Literacy Coalition for inviting me to address this afternoon’s meeting and handing over my “framed” Certificate of appreciation’ from the Education Department for 35 years teaching.

“I can’t believe it’s that long ….. it’s gone in a flash.”

So, many of you will know that I’ve been lumbering away at my Masters in Education for years and I just want to first give you a little pre-history to the work I’ve been doing and the title for discussion.

I think it was during my children’s transition from Primary to High School and the swirling hormones of teenagers that unnerved me for a while and prompted this study.

Articles started appearing in the newspapers that quite frankly depressed me.

Headlines screamed out at me, “Literacy Levels falling in Australia” and, “Education failures creating a lost generation” and then this book was published The Literacy Wars.

A slinging match was carried on in the media and “Teaching Literacy” became a hot political issue

You younger staff members won’t realise but during my time as a teacher I’ve gone through at least four different approaches to teaching literacy and worked with several frameworks designed by the Victorian Education Department including the Curriculum Standards framework and the current Victorian Essential Learning Standards.

What the articles I read seemed to indicate was that it was an either or situation.

But I looked at some of the writers: right wing journalists that had never been in a classroom, economists that measured literacy in terms of fiscal benefits, and old teachers that hadn’t moved with the times and still thought they were teaching homogenous classes of anglo celtic children. Even my guru Mem Fox weighed in, but typical of the media they took a section of her beliefs out of context and had her as the leader of the Caring and Sharing Movement. If children are loved and read to they will become great readers. Of course indigenous education was laid bare and one writer took great delight in rubbishing, “Mem Fox’s picture book Wombat Divine as the only book used to teach literacy to indigenous children from years 1 to 10 during the final term in 2005………a dismal failure” the article reported.

Having the benefit of working at the coal face, so to speak and knowing that I have taught hundreds of children how to read and write I decided to wade through the mire of mud and hype and actually look at the different ways to teach literacy. I want to disperse the idea that there is a war and I want to remind everyone that education with literacy at its core is a basic human right for all of our students.

“In an ideal world”, I heard Mem Fox say at an early literacy conference, ‘where there is no influence of socio economic or cultural background let me tell you the story of a family of readers and a family of non readers”. She is a spell binding storyteller. I could almost hear the collective sigh in the room at the end of the story.

But it isn’t an ideal world and literacy has taken on a much more expansive meaning than when I started. Things have come a long way since I learnt to read with, “John can jump. Betty can jump”

So I decided to call my paper “The Many Roads to Literacy.”

The way I see it, the crux of the matter, “the main arenas of contestation… are grammar, reading, culture, gender, testing, technology and curriculum” Illana Snyder The Literacy Wars pg 10

In this talk today time necessitates that I omit the history of the different movements involved in teaching literacy but after studying them I know they are crucial to how I teach today and each movement has contributed to philosophies on education.

How long have we been teaching the masses to read and write, perhaps we’re all still learning?

But it was around the 1920’s that teacher focused learning, the ‘transmission’ of knowledge from the teacher started to change to child focused and “constructing paths of leaning’ which became known as constructivism.

Here is where the argument has ranged

Number 1. Definitions of literacy have changed over time, making the word one that is “contested” across the division. This evolving definition requires teachers to keep learning in this field. You will all remember the visit earlier this year by Mary and Bill and their talk on Multiliteracies. Adapt, expand your repertoire of resources, learn to use the technology. Children learn in different ways.

Number 2. A balanced approach to the teaching of reading is best.

Arguments I read had scientific data, empirical proof that “the initial teaching of the alphabet and phonics was essential and the best way to teach reading”. The answer to raising literacy levels is phonics. They didn’t believe their opponents that you could teach children to read like they learnt to speak through language immersion and the whole-language approach. The divide clearly fell along party political lines.

Well guess what? They were both right. What’s the fuss about you have to range your teaching between both.

Early years is introducing the letters and the sounds and the handwriting, the sight words and basic grammar. With these building blocks, read stories, recite poems, sing songs. Expose children to language, language language and a range of activities, mediums and ways to learn and respond.

3. Standardised testing does discriminate against students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Broadly speaking ‘in the 1970’s a culture of assessment reigned in Australia, today a culture of measurement is the ascendency.’ (Snyder: pg 128) Viewpoints have changed overtime but when I’m with my class, knowing I have children from 10 different cultural backgrounds sitting there, two have never held a pen in their lives and several have very limited English I wonder the point of the tests.

On the otherhand I have developed these tests and adapted them to my own needs. Some have helped me considerably in accessing and focusing my teaching strategies for particular students. But don’t forget some students do thrive on these tests and academic measures

4. English as a subject has historically been associated with a form of moral regulation and (national) identity that is particularly English.

Many of the writers wishing to go back to the good old days, often, realistically mean go back to when English Literature reigned supreme. The classics, the nod to Royal Britannia, does anyone hear “White Australia Policy.” I have throughly enjoyed getting to know about different countries around the world by working with students and parents and I have actively sort out material to expand my classroom resources. We are still learning best practise when it comes to these areas of, technology, cultural diversity and learning outcomes verses taught knowlege based learning. My advise is to keep an open mind, seek guidance from VELS and the standards for year levels they have defined and employ whatever teaching methods and material suit your students.

5. One final thing: Work versus playfulness

And finally I’d like to thank all my colleagues from the Australian Literacy Coalition who have supported me during my masters. When they literacy wars raged around my head they brought moments of clarity and practical approaches to teaching that were available on line. I thoroughly recommend their website to all of you who are interested in teaching literacy.

http://www.literacyeducators.com.au/

4 resources model – Give them Wings

NIGEL – Laid back

Wendy Warren – “I was hoping to introduce our next speaker, an old friend and colleague of mine Nigel but he’s not here so we might go on with………”

With a flourish and whir of breeze Nigel bounds into the room.

“Sorry I’m late. Someone left the gate open and the few cows I’ve got left were out on the road”.

Wendy Warren - “This, everyone is Nigel who I have invited here to talk to you about the four resources Model of teaching children to read.

Thanks Wendy, I just wanted to read you a short poem to start, it’s by Emily Dickinson

He ate and drank the precious words,

His spirit grew robust,

He knew no more that he was poor,

Or that his frame was dust.

He danced along the dingy ways,

And his bequest of wings,

Was but a book. What liberty

A loosened spirit brings!

Quoted in the book Give them Wings: The Experience of Children’s Literature By Maurice Saxby and Gordon Winch.

It was this book that was my inspiration plus a couple of events that lead me to take it up teaching as a career.

First, the drought had just about knocked us over and my wife and I had been thinking about downsizing for a while. She would need to go back to nursing at the local hospital and I’d also been thinking about a career change for quite a while.

Second impetus was my youngest son; he struggled with his reading from early on. And as it said in the poem and the book, I wanted to give My son “wings”, so he could read for himself

I used to say to him, “Don’t worry Tom, your just like Leo the Late Bloomer

“Do you know that book by Robert Kraus? About the Tiger that can’t do anything right. He can’t run, jump or skip properly and his dad calls him a late bloomer. Then after the snow and the first signs of spring, Leo finally blooms he can walk with dignity, eat properly and run and skip and jump for joy.”

I spent a lot of time with Tom and I read lots of texts book to discover what was hindering his learning.

When I first read about the different components or the strategies that are involved in becoming good readers I had a hard time making sense of it, it may has well have been in Greek, the language was so strange to me

But I was so keen to help my son and I had just embarked on a teaching course. It took me a while to understand it all and when Wendy asked me to come and talk to you today I had to think, What does she mean “The Four resources Model?”

I have been working with this model for so long now that I forgot that’s what it is called.

You see the one thing you have to really understand about the Four Resources Model is that each component is absolutely necessary for students to become skilled readers.

You may have one or more of the components but this is not sufficient the model works as a whole.

I ultimately wanted my “late Bloomer” to become a reader but my studies made me realise there was a whole lot more to it, We would need to take him from emergent reader to a skilled one, where he could interact with a variety of literacies, become a critical reader that questioned the role of the writer. A person who could understand the different roles of literacy and become a functioning member of ours and the wider community.

Readers are a lot more sophisticated these days, with a lot more variables part of the learning process.

Now, how can I put this simply

Let’s look at all the components used in driving. There’s the type of car you drive and the reason you drive, is it a manual or automatic, road rules, which are not the same the world over, then there’s signaling other drivers.

Now, knowing one of them isn’t enough. Sure you’ve turned on the engine, but what next? A lot’s going on when you’re driving but an intergrated approach of many skills are needed to be a safe driver.

Same with the Four Resources Model, all the components must work together

So what are the four practices good readers utilize to become good readers.

Number 1 is the code breaker practice. I’ll never forget the day Tom asked me a question while we were sitting at a petrol station.

“Hey Dad, does that say “Car Wash” he asked

For the first time Tom seemed to realise that letters were code for spoken language, words he already knew and had heard.

“Yes, that’s it” I said

This was a turning point for Tom

Once Tom got that I knew which practise to focus on if he couldn’t read things.

His mother and I both realised Tom had suffered because of the drought. Whereas with his older siblings we’d taught them the alphabet and read to them continuously we were always too dog tired with Tom. So we started an intensive catch up session matching the alphabet with the sounds

“Ants on the apple; a a a” We had sight words stuck to everything, we taught him the patterns in words, sentence structure and we saw that little boy come on in leaps in bounds.

No 2 resource in learning to read is the text participant practise. Where the reader participates in constructing meaning. We bought and borrowed lots of books for Tom in areas that he had an interest in. For example we bought him a book on the solar system and because he had watched plenty of documentaries and had his own telescope he was able to decipher and put together all the components of quite difficult text and images that supported it. He was now starting to construct meaning from his reading.

Now 3 in the model is the Text participant practise. We exposed Tom to all sorts of different texts used for different purposes. Railway timetables, menus in restaurants, the football fixture in the newspaper. At school he actively took part of discussion around different forms of text and would you believe in Year 7 he played the lead in the school play of Bugsy Malone. This little non-reader was now participating with text so much that a whole lengthy script didn’t even phase him. I was incredibly proud of him taking that on.

And the final resource in this model, number 4 is the text analysis practise. This is quite a sophisticated approach and I realised that Tom was now starting to get the idea that texts are not neutral, that they have built into them the writers point of view, assumptions and biases. I saw the penny drop with my son around the time that discussions about a local windfarm were in full swing. we’d received two pamphlets in the letter box, one supporting the farm and one against it.

He saw how either side had skewed the facts for their own purpose. It was such a lesson to Tom and opened his eyes to the need to consider the authors intent. His final year essay on the media’s look at the Tampa incident was truly insightful. He’d come a long way my little fella.

It was this experience with my own son that saw me develop my expertise for teaching reading and writing.

I knew that all the practises involved in reading needed to be developed together.

As I said, I’d almost forgot it was called the four resources model, but re visiting it for this discussion I realise that I try to involve students in all the practises.

Like driving, I don’t think about all the parts, but I do know that all the components are necessary for students to become good readers.

VICTORIAN ESSENTIAL LEARNING STANDARDS – LEVEL 2

Reading

At Level 2, students read independently and respond to short imaginative and informative texts with familiar ideas and information, predictable structures, and a small amount of unfamiliar vocabulary. They match sounds accurately to a range of letters, letter clusters and patterns, and work out the meaning of unfamiliar phrases and words in context. They locate directly stated information, retell ideas in sequence using vocabulary and phrases from the text, and interpret labelled diagrams. They predict plausible endings for stories and infer characters’ feelings. They self-correct when reading aloud and describe strategies used to gain meaning. They identify that texts are constructed by authors, and distinguish between texts that represent real and imaginary experience.

Writing

At Level 2, students write short sequenced texts that include some related ideas about familiar topics. They write texts that convey ideas and information to known audiences. They select content, form and vocabulary depending on the purpose for writing, and describe the purpose and audience for their own and others’ writing. They use appropriate structures to achieve some organisation of the subject matter. They link ideas in a variety of ways using pronouns, conjunctions and adverbial phrases indicating time and place. They accurately spell frequently used words, and make use of known spelling patterns to make plausible attempts at spelling unfamiliar words. They use capital letters, full stops and question marks correctly. They reread their own writing and use a range of editing resources to revise and clarify meaning. They write upper- and lower-case letters legibly with consistent size, slope and spacing.

Speaking and listening

At Level 2, students listen to and produce spoken texts that deal with familiar ideas and information. They demonstrate, usually in informal situations, that they are able to speak clearly using simple utterances and basic vocabulary. They organise spoken texts using simple features to signal beginnings and endings. They vary volume and intonation patterns to add emphasis. They contribute to group activities by making relevant comments and asking clarifying questions to facilitate communication. After listening to short live or recorded presentations, they recall some of the main ideas and information presented. They listen to others and respond appropriately to what has been said.