Here are some places to find key information about high-quality literacy research.
- Language at the Speed of Sight by Prof Mark Seidenberg.
- Reading in the Brain by Dr Stanislas Dehaene. Watch him on video here and here.
- Essentials of Assessing, Preventing and Overcoming Reading Difficulties by David Kilpatrick. Videos of David and other experts can be found at The Reading League.
- Articles by Dr Louisa Moats (many available free online – just search by title and author). Two video lectures by Dr Moats are here and here.
- Proust and the Squid by Prof Maryanne Wolf.
- AUSPELD and its state-based affiliates have research information on their websites, or try the easy-to-read Understanding Learning Difficulties: A Guide for Parents website.
- 2014 Meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials of treatment approaches for children and adults with reading difficulties.
- Learning Difficulties Australia’s website
- Outside the Square
- Association for Direct Instruction
- LD Online, and in particular this article.
- Developmental Disorders of Language and Literacy Network – online network of professionals who want to close the gap between research and practice in literacy teaching.
- SpellTalk listserve: US-based professional discussion group about spelling, and a good source of information about current research.
Literacy statistics
How literate are Australians? Recent large-scale international studies suggest that far too many Australians are struggling with reading and spelling. Click here for more information and links to these studies.
National Inquiries
National inquiries into the teaching of reading have been held in Australia, the UK and the USA.
All the reports are online so you can read them yourself – click here for the links and what I regard as a few key excerpts.
Dyslexia reports
Dyslexia is part of Specific Learning Disorder in the latest edition of the diagnostic manual used by medical and allied professions (DSM-5). In Australia and the UK there have been recent reports describing about the difficulties and needs of people with decoding problems. Click here for more information and the relevant links.
Literature reviews
A useful literature review on literacy-teaching in Australia was published by ACER in 2002, called Closing the gap between research and practice – foundations for the acquisition of literacy.
Scottish Studies – Clackmannanshire and West Dunbartonshire
Two key, long-term studies into literacy-teaching methodology in Scotland have been published in recent years and are worth highlighting – one conducted in Clackmannanshire and one in West Dunbartonshire. Click here for a brief overview and links to their reports.
Policy papers
Two of Australia’s most respected reading scientists wrote a paper in 2007 called Learning to Read in Australia, which remains very relevant.
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Hi Alison,
I enjoyed your talk at the LDA presentation of Maryanne Wolf. I remember you showed a review of research, from memory, about Levelled Literacy Intervention showing that it does not make much of an impact. Could you please send me this link?
I am an LDA consultant member who is doing Year One intervention in a school that has purchased all the F&P kits (against my recommendation). I have said it does not have good results and the head of English would like to see where I’ve got that idea from because she has only heard positive things!!
Kind regards,
Helen
Hi Helen, I put the links to the things I was talking about at the Wolf seminar in this blog post: http://www.spelfabet.com.au/2016/09/filling-the-gaps.
The F&P publicity all says that it’s research/evidence-based, but if you look at THEIR OWN RESEARCH (published on their website but not in a peer-reviewed journal, so whether we really call it research anyway is arguable), it found that improvements that could be attributed to the program were not statistically significant, see http://www.heinemann.com/fountasandpinnell/research/lliefficacystudyreport2012.pdf. But they bury this in a lot of verbiage explaining this away, and a lot of glossy marketing, because they know teachers are not taught how to critically evaluate research.
All the best, Alison C