ST JOSEPH’S MALVERN - A LEADING SCHOOL IN EDUCATION.

Last week, many of you would have heard the announcement by the Victorian government to embed evidence-based learning, including the teaching of phonics from Prep to Year Two by 2025. I have included the statement by the Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allan. 13/6/2024.

The best news is that St Joseph’s Primary School Malvern is regarded as a leader in this field. In 2017, we started embedding evidence-based and explicit teaching, particularly in phonics. We have been on this journey for the past seven years and have been approached by many schools to observe our amazing work and implementation.

From the latest research and our endeavours to provide best practices for all students, we have incorporated a comprehensive reading program that explicitly teaches oral language, vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension from Prep to Year Six. Some of these implementations have been:

Extensive and ongoing professional development for all staff in explicit teaching and the cognitive science research that supports this method.
MSL from Prep to Year Two since 2018. It is a thoroughly researched,evidence-based approach that applies proven knowledge of how the brain works, how students learn, and how they most effectively learn to read and write. It incorporates the five essential steps to reading and writing success: identifying letter sounds, sounding out words, fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.
The purchase of decodable texts from 2018 to assist students in practicing specific phoneme graphemes that they have been explicitly taught.
Spelling Mastery was introduced in 2019. It uses specific strategies that encourage students to think their way through spelling rather than memorise weekly lists. Each lesson includes practice on more than one skill, pattern, or rule. Initially, the students receive a great deal of assistance and guidance in learning the skill. As the lessons progress, the assistance gradually fades until the students apply the skill independently. There are three approaches to the Spelling Mastery program: whole word, phonemic, and morphemic.
Reading fluency is incorporated into Literacy sessions. Reading fluency practice improves the students' accuracy and speed of reading without conscious attention to the mechanics of reading. This, in turn, improves reading comprehension because it makes it much easier for the reader to comprehend complete sentences and content.
Explicitly teaching students background knowledge and vocabulary through the Core Knowledge units. The Core Knowledge units incorporate texts to build students' background knowledge and introduce and consolidate new vocabulary.
The creation and participation in a Literacy Collective of high-achieving and forward-thinking schools to drive and embed evidence-based research programs into our classrooms.

The use of data to drive our teaching.

Every education decision at St Joseph’s is based on evidence-based scientific and educational research. We consistently use our student data to guide our teaching practice. Here are a few examples of our achievements:

St Joseph’s ranked number 1 in the 2023 Year 3 Naplan Reading results for all Catholic schools in the Melbourne Archdiocese (300 schools, including all Catholic private schools).
In reading our trend analysis data in Naplan, has increased and significantly improved every year since 2018.
At St Joseph’s, we use a DIBELS assessment for our Prep and Year One students. It is administered three times a year and assesses the acquisition of literacy skills in these students. The composite expected growth score of the test between February and June is 65 points. Our current Preps composite growth score for February to June was 120.25 points. Our Prep student growth scores on this test almost doubled above the expected test average growth score. This is extraordinary but not surprising because we know explicit teaching in phonics, reading, and writing, which is based on the latest scientific research, is the most effective way to teach our students.

At St Joseph’s, the staff have been extremely dedicated and worked tirelessly at this approach. It is wonderful but well overdue for the Victorian government to finally recognise how children need to be taught reading, writing, and spelling.

The great news is that St Joseph’s is so far ahead in this process.

Amanda Jackson

Just in case you missed the announcement from the Victorian government.

“The Allan Labor Government will embed evidence-based teaching and learning in the Education State – responding to the latest evidence by putting explicit teaching in every classroom. This includes best practice teaching of phonics in the early years.

Minister for Education Ben Carroll today announced the updated Victorian Teaching and Learning Model, which will be implemented in all government schools across the state from 2025 with explicit teaching at its core.

All students from Prep to Grade 2 will be taught using a systematic synthetic phonics approach as part of their reading programs, with a minimum of 25 minutes daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness.

This will be a core component of a comprehensive reading program that also includes explicit teaching of oral language, vocabulary, reading fluency, and comprehension.

Systematic synthetic phonics is a structured approach that explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters to read words.

The latest NAPLAN results show that Victoria leads the nation, ranking first or second in 16 of the 20 measures and scoring the best overall results in Year 3 literacy and numeracy.

Focusing on the foundational skills to teach reading including phonics will reflect evidence-based practices used in schools Australia-wide and internationally that are achieving strong learning outcomes.

The evidence is clear from Victorian schools and reviews conducted by research organisations like the Australian Education Research Organisation and the Grattan Institute– showing explicit teaching works best for the largest number of students, particularly capturing those who may be struggling.

The weight of evidence at home and abroad has become clear and compelling – with studies from the United States, United Kingdom, and across Australia now recommending systematic synthetic phonics as the most effective method to teach children to read.” Premier of Victoria, Jacinta Allan. 13/6/2024.

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