Education Commons^™

Literacy Learning: What Works For Young Indigenous Students??, Nola Purdie, Kate Reid, Sarah Buckley

Dr Sarah Buckley

The Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Study for Indigenous Students (ILLANS) tracked the growth in literacy and numeracy skills of a group of Indigenous students from 27 schools across Australia from the beginning of primary school until the end of Year 6. At the time the study was conceived, longitudinal studies on the school achievement of Indigenous students were comparatively rare. A desire to develop a broader picture of primary school experiences motivated data collection that included a range of other data from a variety of informants in addition to academic achievement data. ILLANS commenced in 2000, with the first phase …

A Slow Burn: The Impact Of Ials In Australia, Juliette Mendelovits

Juliette Mendelovits

Australia Australia has put its hand up to participate in all the international literacy surveys on offer: IALS in the second wave (1996), the ALL Survey in the second wave (2006), and PIAAC in 2011-12 – in the field right now. Nevertheless, until very recently Australia’s general response to the surveys can best be described as inert: more in the vein of our habitual “she’ll be right” than the “clever country” that our prime minister of the 1980s urged us to become. For most of the period since the IALS results were published in 1997, Australia paid little attention to …

Challenges For Australian Education : Results From Pisa 2009 : The Pisa 2009 Assessment Of Students' Reading, Mathematical And Scientific Literacy, Sue Thomson, Lisa De Bortoli, Marina Nicholas, Kylie Hillman, Sarah Buckley

Kylie Hillman

Focusing on reading literacy as the major domain for the PISA 2009 assessment, this national report examines Australian students' achievement in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. Results are reported for the states, by gender, for Indigenous students, by location, language background and by socioeconomic background.

Literacy And Numeracy Learning: Lessons From The Longitudinal Literacy And Numeracy Study For Indigenous Students, Nola Purdie, Kate Reid, Tracey Frigo, Alison Stone, Elizabeth Kleinhenz

Dr Kate Reid

In 2000, ACER commenced the Longitudinal Literacy and Numeracy Surveys for Indigenous Students (ILLANS), which set out to track the development of English literacy and numeracy skills in a group of Indigenous students from school entry through the early years of schooling and beyond, to establish a data-rich picture of educational opportunities for Indigenous students. Phase 1 of ILLANS collected data from Indigenous students at 13 schools across Australia that had been nominated by education systems as examples of good practice in education for Indigenous students. The first three years of the study were reported in the monograph Supporting English …

Final Evaluation Report: Supporting Improved Literacy Achievement (Sila) Project, Robert Hattam, Lyn Kerkham, John Walsh, Jenny Barnett, Dianne Bills, Petra Lietz, Mollie Tobin

Dr Petra Lietz

The Supporting Improved Literacy Achievement (SILA) project has attempted to make a difference to literacy achievement in some of the most ‘educationally disadvantaged’ schools in South Australia, and hence to take on seriously what has been an intractable policy and practice problem for many decades. In brief, the SILA project has adopted a coaching model as the means of providing schools with support for developing responses to diagnostic reviews. This strategy is a significant departure from common practice in DECS where schools are expected to undertake regular self-review processes using the DIAf tools with support for post-review development usually left …

National Partnership Agreement On Literacy And Numeracy : Performance Report For 2010, Ray Adams, Mike Long, Paul Mcclintock

Professor Ray Adams

The COAG Reform Council must independently assess whether Australian jurisdictions have met pre-determined milestones and performance benchmarks contained in the National Partnership on Literacy and Numeracy before reward funding is paid. This report assesses state and territory performance for 2010. Part A describes the National Partnership; Part B devotes a chapter to each jurisdiction's assessment; and Part C suggests improvements to the performance reporting framework.

Enhancing Education, Sheldon Rothman, Sarah Buckley, David Slattery, John Ainley

Dr Sarah Buckley

The Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was announced on 21 July 2007 and has been implemented over the last four years. This federal government initiative aims to protect children, to make communities safe and to build a better future for people living in Indigenous communities and town camps in the Northern Territory. The strategies have changed since its initial implementation but its focus and many of the key themes and measures remain the same. This evaluation examines the NTER from a whole-of-government perspective, reviewing the impact on community safety, wellbeing and service provision; service coordination and engagement; promoting law and …

Thinking Critically About Diagrams: A Theoretical Framework For General Diagrammatic Literacy, Brad Jackel

Dr Brad Jackel

Diagrams are used heavily throughout contemporary society, yet there is little guidance for educators on teaching students to think critically about diagrams in general. Because of this there is almost no systematic guidance for learners on how to approach unfamiliar diagrams with some degree of confidence, particularly in terms of their ability to think critically about the visual ‘rhetoric’ of a given diagram. This is a crucial ability to foster in students, given society’s increasing reliance on forms of graphical communication which encourage the use of diagrams (internet, PowerPoint, tablet computing, smart phones) and the decision-making contexts in which diagrams …

An Ant's Eye View : Some Pluses And Minuses, Dave Tout

David (Dave) Tout

This article provides a history of adult numeracy teaching, looking back at the rise and development if adult numeracy provision, mainly in Victoria, from the perspective of an ANT (adult numeracy teacher), beginning in the late 1970s. The author then describes what lies on the horizon, what lessons adult educators can learn, and what opportunities might lie ahead for adult numeracy in the next decade or so. The article contains an exposition on the benefits of explicitly recognising and supporting numeracy within the language, literacy and numeracy equation. The author argues that, given the Australian data from ALLS, there is …

Contemporary Literacy Practices Of Early Learners (Preps), D Cohen, Anne-Marie Chase

Dr Anne-Marie Chase

Embracing Literacy-Based Teaching: A Longitudinal Study Of The Conceptual Development Of Novice Foreign Language Teachers, Heather W. Allen

Heather Willis Allen

Taking a sociocultural theory perspective (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006), this longitudinal study explored the conceptual development of two teaching assistants in a university foreign language department in relation to literacy and language teaching. Findings illustrate the "twisting path" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 156) of concept development experienced by the two first-time teachers of Spanish as their understandings of literacy and efforts to use tools of literacy evolved over several years. Evidence of the ability to think through concepts of literacy in structuring teaching practices did not emerge for either participant until four semesters after they started teaching, illustrating what a gradual …