Spelfabet

DSF Conference – Day 1

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All but one of the Spelfabet team were able to attend this year’s DSF Language, Literacy and Learning conference in Perth (we missed you, Mel!) so it was great both for team-building & professional learning.

Here are some (I thought) interesting ideas and links from the first day.

How we learn maths, and why girls fall behind

Keynote speaker Prof Stanislas Dehaene said to help kids understand maths we should anchor it in humans’ natural numerical and geometric intuitions e.g. even numbers are made up of pairs, an odd number has a spare; square numbers can be represented geometrically in a square; prime numbers can’t form a square or rectangle. Teaching should work from concrete materials to pictures to symbols.

There’s no difference in kids’ maths abilities at school entry, but girls quickly fall behind after starting school. There was no maths gender gap during COVID, so the gender gap is cultural. Girls and boys need to be engaged equally, emphasising the playful aspects of maths and insisting that mistakes help us learn. More details in Dehaene’s book The Number Sense.

Language/literacy difficulties and mental health

Prof. Genevieve McArthur from the Language and Literacy in Young People (LaLYP) research team said poor reading often leads to low reading self-concept, anxiety and reading disengagement. Red flags include talk of being a ‘bad reader’ and feeling scared, worried or sick about reading. The free MOTIF Reading Anxiety Tests and Reader Self-Perception Scale can be used to monitor reading-related mental health. The Black Dog Institute and DSF have been developing reading-related mental health tools.

Dr Samuel Calder discussed his research into the functional impacts of language difficulties, which are necessary for a diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD), but require better definition and measurement. Dr Shaun Ziegenfusz said secondary students with DLD find literacy and numeracy difficult, but language and social-emotional tasks less hard. They valued extra time, visuals and individualised supports, and felt connected to school. They thought technology was more helpful than adults did. Shaun’s DLD Project has heaps of high-quality online training about DLD, some of it free.

Dr Adrienne Wilmot emphasised that ‘Talk therapy’ focussed on mental health doesn’t suit language disordered kids. Mental health professionals need to understand language disorder, and personalise students’ mental health care. Dr Emily Jackson said mental health promotion materials for students with DLD should not be ‘language heavy’. She discussed the development of a small group intervention for Year 5, 6 and 7 students called The Code To Me: Cracking the Code to Confidence and Wellbeing. Perth families can click here to find out how to participate in its pilot, and they’ll run an RCT next year.

Dr Elizabeth Hill said Curtin Uni’s Psychology Masters courses now include teaching about language/literacy and mental health needs, emphasising professional cross-collaboration. They also run a Community of Practice on accessible mental health services for people with communication difficulties.

Student-focussed coaching

The La Trobe SOLAR Lab’s Profs Tanya Serry and Pamela Snow and team are researching the impact of teacher Student-Focussed Coaching on early years’ students’ reading and spelling, assisted by Dr Daryl Michel, co-author of the book Student Focused Coaching. 80% of Year 3 students who struggle with literacy continue to struggle, so high-quality early teaching is vital. The 22 schools in this randomised control trial (RCT) all had access to Solar Lab short courses and quality teaching materials. Ten also had fortnightly, in-school coaching. Qualitative data collected showed the importance of relationship-building and leadership buy-in, the high administrative load of coaching, and variability in how coaches work. Teacher knowledge and confidence improved as a result of coaching. A report including student data will be available later this year.

Talk for Reading

Susie Hillard and Janet Gethin from DSF discussed the Talk for Reading approach, which expands language and reading comprehension through a dialogic approach to read-alouds, think-alouds and the development of mental models. Texts such as those on the Australian Reading Spine are used to build the habit of listening, talking, writing and deep thinking about what they read.

Literacy instruction for EAL students

Melbourne-based educational consultant Leah Myers reviewed research on literacy instruction for students learning English as well as their home language. No surprise: evidence-based instructional techniques also work for EAL students, especially MTSS and RtI approaches. Useful resources highlighted included AERO’s How long it takes to learn English while learning the curriculum.

Secondary school literacy intervention checklist

The SOLAR Lab’s Melanie Henry is researching literacy intervention in secondary schools. She has developed, piloted, and is now revising a 2-part checklist which gathers information about (1) classroom setup and resources and (2) instruction, via classroom observation.

The art and science of explaining stuff

Keynote speaker Zach Groshell gave an entertaining summary of key instructional ideas. Explicit instruction. Worked examples, and counter-examples. Reducing cognitive load. Task analysis. Visuals and gesture. I do, we do, you do. Working from isolated to integrated, and supported to independent. You can read more about all these good ideas here.

Early oral language screening and instruction

Lauren Cook from Catholic Education Sandhurst and Lauren Mirabella from Pearson talked about the rollout of OxEd & Assessment’s LanguageScreen and Nuffied Early Language Intervention (NELI) across 52 primary schools. Many children had oral language delays/difficulties at school entry, and thus were at risk of also developing literacy difficulties. These resources were devised by Oxford University Professors Charles Hulme and Maggie Snowling and team using RCTs. They now have Australian and NZ norms. The UK research found that NELI participants made 3-5 months extra language progress in six months.

Starting in 2024 in Sandhurst Diocese schools, the 5-10 minute screener was administered by teachers via iPads. Children identified by the screener as having oral language difficulties then did 20 weeks of NELI oral language intervention (3 X 30 minutes in small groups, and two 15 minute individual sessions), delivered by trained school staff and supported by speech pathologists. Despite timetabling and staffing constraints, and challenges ensuring fidelity of implementation and consistent data use, there are early signs of improved student outcomes, and increased staff confidence and collaboration in supporting language in the classroom.

Lauren Mirabella emphasised Pearson’s commitment to effective, evidence-based teaching, so I asked why they still sell Fountas and Pinnell resources. She said F&P products would be taken off their website in a week. Click here, here and here to see if it’s happened, and send them applause when it has.

Tomorrow: Day 2

Alison Clarke