Principal's Report

Reading at RMPS and the Grattan Institute Report

Many parents and carers will have seen recent media reports regarding a report published by the Grattan Institute about approaches to teaching reading in Primary Schools.

The report emphasises a need for a “‘structured literacy’ approach right through school, which includes a focus on phonics in the early years” https://grattan.edu.au/report/reading-guarantee/

The report recommends the adoption of a nationwide ‘Reading Guarantee’ to lift reading standards across the country. In 2021, Roberts McCubbin Primary School made a deliberate and decisive move towards the reading instruction methods recommended by the report, as one of the very first in our area to do so.

The Grattan Report’s Reading Guarantee includes six recommendations, all of which we would welcome and feel comfortable implementing further:

1. Pledge that at least 90 per cent of Australian students will become proficient readers.

In the 2023 NAPLAN, only 3% of RMPS students were measured as ‘needing additional support’ in reading. Students performing in the ‘exceeding’ or ‘strong’ categories were comfortably above the state averages in both Year 3 and Year 5.

Of course, we are working towards continuing to lift standards for all students, with ambitious reading targets in both our Strategic Plan and Annual Implementation Plans.

2. Give principals and teachers specific guidelines on how to teach reading in line with the evidence on what works best.

After extensive research into evidence-based reading instruction by the Roberts McCubbin PS Leadership and some motivated teachers; in 2021 we employed Learning Specialist, Fiona Hall, who was previously in charge of reading intervention programs at Wesley College. Throughout 2021 and 2022, Fiona worked with leadership and staff to refocus our teaching of reading in line with unequivocal research indicating the necessity for the structured teaching of reading; with a focus on phonics in the early years and for students needing additional support in the older year levels.

Credit must go to our wonderful teaching staff for being open-minded to these new approaches and for the consistency of practice they have managed to achieve in adopting some very different methods of instruction.

When Fiona moved on for the 2023 school year, Literacy Leader Kelly Vimpani took up the baton, again supported by a skilled staff who have continued to embrace our re-focused approach to teaching reading.

3. Provide schools with the high-quality curriculum materials and assessments that teachers need to teach reading well.

Over the last three years, we have invested heavily in resources and curriculum materials to support the teaching approaches recommended by the Grattan report. As an example, last year we began the expensive task of gradually replacing our old ‘predictable’ classroom and take-home readers, replacing them with ‘decodable’ readers that support phonics teaching and learning.

To cater for fluent readers, engaging books of an appropriate level have been sourced to support and extend our more advanced students. For older students who need assistance with their reading, and for those learning English, we have invested in ‘high interest’ decodable readers to maintain engagement while scaffolding for ability level.

This investment is one example of the tremendous benefit we get from our annual parent payments, with our Library Fund being vital in enabling the purchase of the take-home books and supplementing high quality literature throughout the library.

4. Require schools to do universal screening of students’ reading skills and help struggling students to catch-up.

We have been doing this since the introduction of the Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI). In implementing the TLI, we made the decision that, as a key building block of all other learning, reading skills needed to be a major priority of our Tutoring program. Our tutors were trained in the delivery of the MaqLit, MiniLit and Toe by Toe intervention programs, with phonics-based assessments supplementing our established assessments in identifying students who needed assistance in reading, in all areas of the school.

In the last three years, identified students have received high-quality, research-based, phonics grounded interventions by qualified teachers. Of course, there are many additional students we would loved to have included in the tutor program, however we are proud of the programs we have offered within the limited funding we have had at our disposal.

Our tutors, Kelly Vimpani and Jessica Lipscombe, are currently in the process of establishing the first cohort of students who will be part of the TLI for 2024.

5. Ensure teachers have the knowledge and skills they need, through extra training, and by appointing Literacy Instructional Specialists in schools.

See point 2. above!

While we would obviously welcome the opportunity to offer more time to Kelly to spread her literacy expertise (which is extensive), or to employ additional Literacy Leadership, we are proud of the professional learning we have been able to offer staff in recent years, both externally and through our Professional Learning Communities (PLC) approach in recent years. Led by PLC leader Sonia Robinson and a skilled group of level leaders, staff have worked together both during timetabled planning time and outside of school hours; to develop, discuss and refine our teaching of reading, tied to evidence-based assessment and instructional approaches.

6. Mandate a nationally consistent Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, and regularly review schools’ and principals’ performance on teaching their students to read.

Again, while we would welcome the opportunity this data would provide us to further target and refine our knowledge of student progress within reading, we have already implemented extensive phonics-based assessments across the school to monitor and track learning. The internationally recognised Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) standardised assessments provide high level data and insights into student learning in reading, with teachers and tutors using this data to plan further reading instruction targeted to the point of need for each student.

While we are proud to have a strong foundation of structured reading instruction in place, we are continually striving to refine, adapt and enhance these approaches to ensure all students have the opportunity to achieve their potential as a reader. This year, we are again exploring high-performing schools that have been on a similar journey to gain insight into their approaches and programs, as well as looking at some new approaches that schools nearby have introduced.

If you would like to know more about our reading instruction programs, please feel free to reach out to your class teacher, Assistant Principal Stephen Roche, Literacy Leader Kelly Vimpani, or myself.

Peter Watson

Principal