Learning Specialists 

This week at school we have recognised Education Week and celebrated 150 years of education in Victoria. Students were involved in some games that students played at recess and lunch times in the past, such as hopscotch and marbles. As recess and lunch time games have changed over time so has the curriculum and the manner in which we teach educational outcomes. Let’s take a look at how…

Previously the core curriculum was known as the Three R’s: ‘Reading, Writing and 'Rithmetic.’ The approach was ‘rote’ learning. ‘Rote’ learning is a method in which a concept is repeated many times until it can be recalled accurately. For Reading and Writing this meant learning the alphabet letters. For 'Rithmetic this meant saying times tables over and over again!

Whilst repetition is a valid and key component of teaching practice, thankfully there have been many research studies into how students learn which means that in the present day we utilise a range of methods to ensure students understand curriculum content. For Reading and Writing we focus on the letter and sound connection in a multi-sensory approach. This means incorporating more than one sense (modality) and includes learning through seeing, hearing, doing and touching. For Mathematics, if we take the example of times tables, we first look at arrays of objects. Arrays are an arrangement of objects, numbers or pictures in rows and columns, with the purpose being to aid in the visual understanding of times tables.