Evidence based practice

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Introduction.
Hi there. Welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast, coming to you from Pataway Burnie here in gorgeous Tasmania. I'm Jocelyn Seamer, and I'm so pleased that you've decided to join me for today's episode. Before we begin, I'd like to ask a favour of you. If you find value in the Structured Literacy podcast, can you please do the usual rating and subscribing, and then can you hop on your socials and share your favourite episode? Our purpose in produc…

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00:00:00
Introduction
Hello there, and welcome to the Structured Literacy Podcast. My name is Jocelyn Seamer, and I am so pleased to be here with you today. I'm not recording this episode from home; I am, in fact, on the lands of the Wurundjeri Willum people in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. I'm here for three gorgeous days, a full day of PL tomorrow with the school and then two days in the classroom with teachers and leaders having a look at how this school can…

At a certain point in a child's reading development we start the focus on fluency and one of the signs of a struggling reader is stilted, slow reading even after several years of reading instruction. The Australian Curriculum says that children should be ‘practising fluency’ from foundation the foundation year and ‘using fluency’ from year 1.  I’m really sorry (ok, not sorry) but what on earth does that even mean?   As teachers we are often left to our own devices to interpret what fluency act…

When we look at all of the things we are meant to do in a day the pressure of it all can leave us paralysed and feeling like a failure.  For those of us with a passion for the reading science, the drive to do it all NOW can overwhelm not only us, but the teams around us.  When we look at the Facebook groups and watch the webinars, it can be hard not to feel like a failure as we see that there are so many hurdles to jump to create change in our schools.  When we feel overwhelmed, the way to kee…

One of the most common questions asked in Facebook groups about literacy instruction is “Is this a science of reading resource?”   It’s a question that usually ends up with a variety of answers ranging from, ‘No! Don’t touch it!’ to ‘Ooooh, I love that one’.  Neither of these answers is very helpful if you are the teacher trying to wade your way through complex decision making to get the best outcomes for your students.  This week I’d like to provide a little information and some ideas to consid…

We all know that phonics is one of the 6 essential components of reading instruction and, in and of itself, is not sufficient to help children become proficient readers.  It is, however, critical that we get the teaching of phonics, starting with phoneme grapheme correspondence, right so that children have a firm foundation on which to base their reading skill development.

The title of today’s post gives away where my head has been this past week! A slew of Facebook posts and shared links revea…

Imagine going to the hardware store knowing you need to fix the mould in your bathroom. You look for ‘mould products’ and discover a wonderful looking bottle of mould killer that promises to eradicate all of your bathroom problems. You take it home, spray your bathroom liberally and regularly and the problem seems to clear up (you can forgive the bleached areas of paint on the untiled sections of your bathroom. After all, the mould is gone). Except, that it hasn’t. Your tiles look lovely and c…

There has been a lot of talk lately about the very encouraging announcement that Arkansas in the United States has banned teach children the three cueing method in reading instruction.  This means that teachers will need to find an alternative to teaching children to do any of the following:

• Look at the first letter, look at the picture and think about what makes sense
• Skip the word, read on and then come back after you think about what makes sense
• Trying a word that makes sense
• Using …

Many of us know about the science of reading. We know the importance of phonics, oral language, decodable texts and phonemic awareness and we are hungry for ways to develop our classroom practice so that we can get the best outcomes for every child.

If this is you, I want to invite you to join me on the Science of Reading Bus in 2021!  Being on the bus is an idea that really appeals to me.  The bus is the network of teachers, education assistants, parents, intervention specialists, university…

So, you have been lobbying your Principal and they have finally let you have 20 minutes of your staff meeting to share your passion for the reading science.  What do you do?  Do you hand out a journal article showing that systematic phonics is more effective than whole word reading and workshop responses? Do you share a clip explaining how balanced literacy has failed students?  You could do those things, but if you are hoping to start the seeds of conversation about changing practice in your sc…