Early years

A new paper by ACER’s Greta Rollo and Dr Kellie Picker unpacks the science of reading. In a 3-part series for Teacher, they explain each of the components that make up the science of reading, and share implications for teaching. This final article explores the unconstrained skills.

A new paper by ACER’s Greta Rollo and Dr Kellie Picker unpacks the science of reading. In a 3-part series for Teacher, they explain each of the components that make up the science of reading, and share implications for teaching. This second article delves into constrained skills.

A new paper by ACER’s Greta Rollo and Dr Kellie Picker unpacks the science of reading. In a 3-part series for Teacher, they explain each of the components that make up the science of reading, and share implications for teaching. This first article provides an overview of all 6 components.

The award-winning children’s TV series Little J & Big Cuz is returning with a brand-new season on 8 July. Now in its fourth season, the animated show is translated into 17 Australian First Nations languages and supports First Nations children and their families with the transition from home to school.

Australian research involving 321 educators who directly work with children in centre-based early childhood services involved completion of a time use diary over 10 working days. From the data, the research team created an ‘average working day’, which we share in today’s infographic.

In this edition of Researching education: 5 further readings, we’re sharing 5 pieces of content on the topic of assessment from researchers in Australia and from overseas. You can read research into the state of assessment literacy of teachers across the globe, and a paper on early years educators’ use of phonological awareness assessment practices.

Our guest for this episode of The Research Files is Professor Anne Castles. She’s a Keynote speaker at ACER’s Research Conference next month, which is exploring how to improve continuity of learning in the first 12 years of a child’s life. We’ll be discussing some of the research on learning to read, and getting a taster of what delegates can expect from her presentation.

In our latest expert Q&A we talk to Greta Rollo, who leads the Primary Early Childhood and Inclusive Research team at the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER), and ACER Research Fellow Dr Kellie Picker, about the place of phonics in early reading instruction.

How we can improve the continuity of learning from birth to 12 years? That is the question that will be explored at Research Conference 2023, held in Sydney on 3 and 4 September. In this Q&A, we speak with Conference Convener and ACER Senior Research Fellow Dr Claire Scoular, about the conference theme.

‘The default assumption has been that being a generalist is what primary school teachers prefer, or else they would have become secondary teachers.’ In our latest reader submission, Dr James Russo shares the findings of a study asking generalist early years teachers at schools in 2 Australian states if they’d rather be subject specialists.