Reading

In this edition of Researching education: 5 further readings, we share 5 pieces of content on the topic of supporting reading from researchers in Australia and from overseas, including an open access book with practical teaching strategies and a paper that takes a deep dive into phonemic proficiency.

Australia’s results in the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) were released last week. In our latest expert Q&A we speak with PIRLS National Project Manager for Australia and ACER Senior Research Fellow Kylie Hillman about some of the interesting findings to come from this cycle.

Australian students’ literacy achievement has remained steady in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to results from the 2021 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). In today’s article we look at some of the factors influencing year 4 students’ performance on the assessment, and how their results compare internationally.

It is widely acknowledged that teaching is a stressful job, and the global events of the past few years have added an enormous amount of extra pressure on those working in education. In today’s episode we share some of the pieces we’ve published on the topic of teacher health and wellbeing.

How can schools encourage students that are capable readers, but have no interest in reading for pleasure, to read more frequently? This is the underlying question that drove the research project of English teacher and 2021 Reading Australia Fellowship recipient Edwina West.

NAPLAN’s National Minimum Standard is the ‘agreed minimum acceptable standard of knowledge and skills without which a student will have difficulty making sufficient progress at school’. Ahead of the 2023 tests, we compare the percentage of male and female students in year 9 achieving at or above the standard in Literacy, over time.

In the National Assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests, the national minimum standard (NMS) is the ‘agreed minimum acceptable standard of knowledge and skills without which a student will have difficulty making sufficient progress at school’. This infographic looks at the performance of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in Year 9, over time.

'The importance of establishing strong positive attitudes towards learning – particularly towards reading, which underlies so much of students’ learning – is critical, particularly in view of the past two years.' Ahead of the December release of PIRLS 2021 results, Dr Sue Thomson recaps what 2016 data show about students in Australia.

In their final video in a 3-part series for Teacher, Teacher Librarian Mali Jorm shares the details of the third area in a targeted program, The Three Spheres of Library Skills, which scaffolds students to achieve success in 3 core areas of library skills: Readers, Researchers, and Thinkers.

Last year, we heard about an action research project which was occurring at Queenwood School for Girls in Sydney to build a culture of reading for pleasure across the school. The research project has concluded, and in this article, we get an update on the project’s impact on student outcomes and wellbeing.