The Australian National Literacy levels that were published recently are truly shocking for a developed nation. We have to find a better way to solve this problem!
Solutions so far offered by governments and bureaucracies keep falling short. National testing isn’t solving anything, and practising in ways that are just simply too hard, do nothing to engage, inspire and extend children’s abilities.
We suggest that an individual approach, helping each child learn to read, write and spell in ways that respect their individual strengths and weaknesses and improve upon them is the way to go. This isn’t a new idea, but it is one that can’t be left just to teachers- especially in our overloaded system.
Together, Lisa and I share a checklist of skills and abilities to that children need in order to read, write and spell confidently – listen to find out what they are.
If you have a child in your life who isn’t progressing with these academic skills as well as you think they should, consider this list, and rather than doing more of what is hard and seeing children become increasingly frustrated, work out what’s getting in the way and build those skills so that children can become the confident learners we all want them to be!
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