Teaching reading and phonics

Transcript

EMILY BENSON:
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Academy Special Webinar on the Evidence Informed Teaching of Reading. Thanks for joining us this afternoon. My name's Emily Benson, and I have the privilege of being the Director of the Academy's Teaching Excellence Division. I'll be introducing our webinar today. So, first, a little bit about the format of today's webinar. The slides and a recording of this webinar will be available in the week beginning of the 11th of November, and you'll receive an email when the slides and recording are ready for you to access. A few things to note, in webinar mode, as we are in WebEx this afternoon, you won't be able to unmute yourself or see participants, but you can see my colleagues who are presenting the webinar and who I'll introduce in a moment. There will be a poll that will pop up. It'll look like the three squares with a plus in the corner. And we'll have ten minutes at the end to review and respond to any questions you post through that. Given the large number of participants this afternoon, it's unlikely we'll be able to respond to every question, but we've got our team working away in the background gripping questions by theme, so hopefully we'll be able to answer a lot of what you're asking us today.

Once you've submitted your question in the Q&A function, you'll see that it says awaiting review. That's your confirmation that it's in the hands of our team who are collating in the questions. That means you've lodged your question. And we'll be having a look at those in the background. At the Academy, we recognise the traditional owners of the lands on which we work, learn and play. I'm on the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation this afternoon, and I pay respect to Elders past and present and Elders from the lands you're joining from this afternoon right across Victoria. It's now my great privilege to introduce to you our facilitators this afternoon. We've got Simon O'Brien, who is currently a Principal in Residence in the Academy's Teaching Excellence Division. He's a primary school principal with over seven years experience in leading schools, and he was on the network executive in the Barwon Southwest team and is an experienced professional learning facilitator. We've also got Cathy Buchanan-Hagen, who's currently a Master Teacher in Residence in the Academy's Teaching Excellence Division.

Also, she's done a master's of Teaching in English Primary. She's an instructional coach. She's a literacy learning specialist. She's a literacy local leader's master trainer, which is an academy program you might be familiar with. She's an experienced professional learning facilitator and a primary school teacher also from the Barwon area. So, without further ado, Simon, I'd like to hand right over to you. Thanks.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
Thanks, Emily. So, today, what we're hoping that you achieve as an objective of the webinar is to really develop that understanding of the evidence base for Victoria's new approach to teaching reading in F-2, to develop an understanding of how the teaching elements within the Victorian curriculum teaching and learning model 2.0 can be utilised to support the teaching of a comprehensive literacy approach and to develop a working understanding of the systematic synthetic phonics and its role within a broad, comprehensive evidence informed learning program. So really, it's a high level overview of the new reading position, whilst also delving specifically into what's more pressing for many of you to consider in terms of the imperative that has been established, which is implementing systematic synthetic phonics. So, in the next 60 minutes or so, we're going to work through what is the approach, understanding the research behind the Big 6, what does teaching phonics look like, the interplay between the systematic synthetic phonics and the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0, a little bit about where we're heading to next with the work as advised by the Department of Education and an opportunity to ask and answer some of your questions as well.

So, we hope it's gonna be an information filled session for you, but it will be quite fast paced. So, what is Victoria's approach to teaching reading in F-2? It's evidence informed as it states on the screen. It's recognised that the Big 6 of the existential to learning, to read includes systematic synthetic phonics as part of a structured literacy approach in F-2. And there is an expectation of that 25 minutes of daily explicit teaching of phonics and phonemic awareness within the systematic synthetic phonics approach. It's really important to note that schools will have three years to implement this new approach. This approach assist teachers to translate research and practice in their classrooms and assist schools to audit their current practices of teaching the Big 6 essential elements of reading to ensure that everything is being covered. So, what is systematic synthetic phonics? So, when we define systematic, it talks about the content that is taught utilising a clearly defined sequence that is logical in progression or simply put it, it's going from that 
simple to complex.

Synthetic is about recognising that the individual sounds are identified within 
a word, which we call segmenting. And then synthesising the reading of the word, which we call blending. Phonics 
is the body of knowledge that encapsulates the relationship between the sounds and letters in the English language. Victoria's reading approach stipulates 25 minutes of daily systematic synthetic phonics instruction. Both reading and cognitive science research explains the essential knowledge and skills that contribute to the development of accurate and automatic word recognition. Explicit teaching at the word level, while a small part of reading overall instruction in reading is critical to get it right early. Word recognition is the foundation for other components of reading, namely fluency and comprehension. It's important to define what it means. And in the previous slide, we have provided you with that information around what is systematic synthetic phonics. So, at 
the moment, if not already, a poll 
may have shown up on your screen.

This poll is really for us to capture an understanding of where schools are at in terms of their implementation journey. It's recognised that there are many schools across Victoria that already have elements of the Big 6 and systematic synthetic phonics as part of their comprehensive literacy approach, but it also recognises that some schools are adopting this approach as new in 2025. I'd offer you the opportunity to respond to that poll and just to let us know as an academy, where your school sits in terms of its implementation journey. And thanks everyone for contributing. It's really, valuable information for us, particularly as an academy, thinking about how we can continue to support not only you as the Victorian teachers, but also how we work closely with the Department of Education to align the key messages and research into what we're hoping to support you in terms of practice and pedagogy. So, on the 2nd 
of September this year, Dr David Howes, the Deputy Secretary of Schools and Regional Services for the Department 
of Education came to the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership 
to speak to 100 Teaching Excellence Program teachers in the English discipline about the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0 and the updated approach to reading.

He stated in his speech with the first sentence of the reading approach that reading is a foundational life skill and a source of pleasure and wonder. And it was very clear that this approach affirmed the pleasure and wonder of reading. His communication was clear. There's no need for schools to throw everything away and start again. 
There was a recognition that many schools are already teaching phonics using a systematic synthetic approach as part of their comprehensive literacy instruction and will continue to do so. Those schools have not yet to consolidate a systematic synthetic phonics program. We'll be able to address this over the next three years and begin next year, and that the department of providing information and resources which will support in the, which will include lesson plans, some of which are available now, and webinars and other professional learning opportunities. Again, this message from Dr David Howes being shared, is being shared over the next 15 days at various area principal forums.

Yesterday, when he visited Barwon, the Barwon area, he reiterated this and spoke passionately about all students, but highlighted in particular the students in our schools who struggle daily with inadequate literacy skills. And he talked about how important it's an early foundational systematic synthetic phonics approach is in ensuring that all students in Victorian government schools have access and the right keys to develop those foundational skills. So, that reading is a source of pleasure and wonder. It's essential that we as the academy orient all of our work to the DE position through the lens of where it fits in the broader landscape of not only the curriculum, learning and assessment within our system. Before doing so, 
I'd like to thank the Department of Education Language and Literacy team for this clear and detailed graphical representation of that context. Here we can see the cascading and interweaving nature of the requirements and resources as the reading position is now reflected across all levels of Victorian curriculum and learning architecture.

Specifically, these updates, updated expectations are reflected in the achievement standards and the content descriptors found within the Victorian Curriculum 2.0. And it's underpinned by the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0, which emphasizes creating the preconditions for learning through awareness of how we learn constraints within the elements of learning and evidence-informed instruction through the elements of teaching. Furthermore, we are fortunate that the Department of Education has been busy developing individual lesson plans, in addition to the Phonics Plus program providing 
a wonderful set of resources that will support both the transition to this approach as well as the implementation of the Victorian curriculum to the English curriculum in the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 in your schools. Resources including scope and sequences for F-2 and sample lesson plans are currently available on Arc with much more to come. For the purposes of this session, though, we're gonna largely focus on the implications for teaching and reading from foundation 
F-2, while providing that high level overview that we referenced earlier.

So, what is a structured literacy approach? Well, the International Dyslexia Association defines structured literacy as systematic approach to teaching reading that emphasises explicit systematic instruction. It's an effective instructional approach that benefits all students and is vital for students to struggle significantly, significantly with learning literacy difficulties. There's, three guiding principles to a structured literacy approach. First, it's systematic and cumulative, which means that the learning material is organised in a really logical order of language and learning, and is sequenced to build on previously taught complex concepts and with increasing complexity. Explicit refers to the instruction required to directly teach kids through concept of and continuous dialogue between teacher and students. Diagnostic meaning that teachers must be adept at individualizing instruction based on careful and continuous assessment. Within a structured literacy approach, it's important to note that while systematic synthetic phonics instruction is a core component.

It alone does not constitute a structured literacy approach overall. Rather that structured literacy can be broadly seen as an overarching instructional 
approach to each of the Big 6.

CATHY BUCHANAN-HAGEN:
Thanks, Simon. So, Simon just mentioned understanding the research and exploring the Big 6. We're going to actually do a little bit of a deep dive into that now. In 1997 in the USA, the National Reading panel was formed 
to assess the various approaches to teaching young people to read. Key themes were drawn out repeatedly from the panel's findings, including the role 
of parents in providing early literacy experiences, the early identification of students at risk of reading failure, the importance of phonemic awareness, phonics, and good literature in reading instruction, the need for clear objective, scientifically based information on different types of reading instruction, the importance of the role of teachers, their professional development, and their opportunities to collaborate. As a result of the panel's findings, five essential components were identified, and they are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension, at that time called the Big 5. In 2010, Dr Deslea Konza, an Associate Professor of Language and Literacy, emphasised the crucial role of oral language in reading instruction.

She recommended integrating oral language activities to enhance vocabulary development, comprehension and fluency. So, the 
Big 5 then became the Big 6. Her recommended key strategies to strengthen oral language skills included engaging students in discussions, storytelling and interactive read alouds to build linguistic skills. Konza advocated for explicit teaching of vocabulary within meaningful contexts, as well as encouraging rich conversations that promote critical thinking. By prioritising oral language, educators can create a foundation for effective reading, fostering a deeper understanding and connection with texts. This holistic approach supports diverse learners in developing essential reading competencies. So, in summary, Dr Konza stated that all young people need a stimulating language environment at school, but for children from less literacy rich backgrounds, that need is really urgent and paramount. So, oral language is important. Actually, I'm gonna talk about this quote 'cause I love this quote.

The reading and writing float on a sea of talk. And it's so true, you know that the talk is sort of the basis for our learning about reading and writing. An oral language is important in its own right. But in relationship to the learning of reading, it's crucial. So, recent research shows that students' oral language proficiency plays a critical role in the acquisition of reading fluency and comprehension. Scaffolded classroom talk assist students to deepen their understanding of texts. Oral language helps children develop phonemic awareness. A strong oral vocabulary provides children with a rich foundation of words that they can understand and use. Exposure to oral language helps children learn the rules of grammar and syntax, which govern the structure of, structure of sentences. Oral language skills are essential for comprehending spoken language. As children develop their oral language abilities, they become better able to understand the meaning of what they read and write. Oral language can be a powerful tool for motivating and engaging children in learning to read and write.

By providing opportunities for children to express themselves orally and participate in conversations, educators can help them develop a love of reading and a desire to learn. So, let's really now delve into the Big 6. And this refers to all the essential components of effective reading instruction, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension and oral language. Here's a little brief overview of each component, including phonological awareness, which is not actually written up there. Phonological awareness is a broad term that refers to the ability to focus on the sounds of speech as opposed to its meaning. And it has 
a number of different levels or components in this broad term. 
So, it's the realisation that a continuous stream of speech can be separated into individual words, that those words can be broken up into one or more syllables, and that syllables are made up of separate single sounds. It includes skills like identifying and generating rhyme, counting syllables and recognising initial sounds in words.

The most significant of these components for reading development 
is awareness of the individual sounds 
of phonemes, and that is phonemic awareness, as you can see up there. 
This focuses specifically on the individual sounds, phonemes in words, so anything with a phone in it refers to sound. Students who can't hear the separate sounds in words can't relate these sounds or phonemes to graphemes letters, which is an enormous stumbling block in learning to read and spell. The second one there, or the third one after oral language, which we've already discussed in depth is phonics. So, phonics is simply the connection or relationship between letters and sounds. Underneath that we have fluency, which refers to the ability to read text smoothly and accurately with appropriate speed and expression. If readers are fluent, they can focus on comprehension rather than decoding, allowing for better understanding of the text. But of course, we know for students to be fluent, they must have a strong phonics knowledge.

Speaking of fluency itself, that refers to the ability to read, oh, I think I just said that, sorry to read text smoothly. Underneath that we have vocabulary. And vocabulary development is critical for reading comprehension. This involves teaching both the meanings of words and how to use them in context. A rich vocabulary supports students' ability to understand and engage with texts. And the last one up there is comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading. It involves understanding, interpreting and analysing text. Effective instruction includes teaching strategies for making predictions, summarising, questioning and inferring. So, altogether, these 
six practices create a comprehensive framework for reading instruction, ensuring that students develop the necessary skills to become proficient readers. Phonological awareness as the foundation is particularly important in early literacy development, setting the stage for success in the other five areas. So, we're going to break down the skills a little bit more.

The six literacy skills are broken up into both constrained and unconstrained skills. And you can see on the slide there that three of the skills are constrained skills and they're phonics, fluency, phonemic awareness, and the broader term phonological awareness and unconstrained skills, oral language, vocabulary and comprehension. So, when we talk about constrained skills, they're skills that have a clear limit and they're typically easier to teach and assess. So, they involve specific well-defined tasks or knowledge. For example, phonics and phonemic awareness are constrained skills because they have a set of rules and structure that can be explicitly taught and measured. If we think about the three unconstrained skills on the right of the slide, they're broader and they're more flexible, allowing for a wider range of application and interpretation. 
They develop over time and through experience, often involving higher order thinking and creativity. For instance, reading comprehension and writing styles are unconstrained skills because they rely on a combination of knowledge, critical thinking and personal expression that evolves 
with practice.

In summary, constrained skills are specific and teachable. While unconstrained skills are broader, more complex, and they develop through varied experiences. If we think about some of the constraints to the Big 6, some issues that arise in the implementation of the Big 6 in primary classrooms are that sometimes they're siloed or they're separated from each of the components and just taught individually. When the national reading panel listed these components, they didn't intend that each would be taught in isolation, nor did they imply 
a developmental sequence from phonemic awareness to comprehension. Literacy instruction needs cohesion and integration. And it's especially important for our English as additional language learners or students who may not have had much exposure to text in their early years. Another issue is that the model broken up into six equal parts might suggest to some that each of these components equals about one sixth of the literacy program. Some teachers argue that decoding is the priority and that comprehension will come later.

We know decoding is extremely important but this is known as the bottom-up approach as evident in Halliday's model here. Meaning making is what reading is for. And for the work of building meaning it's huge. So, meaning is carried not just in vocabulary, but in the text purpose, the text structure, the illustrations that accompany the text, the paragraph order and structure, the sentence structure, the phrases and groups of words inside the sentence. So, we can't just leave this work until later while we teach decoding, but it, we must find ways to build meaning while we systematically teach students to decode. If we have a little think about the research, the volume of research on reading instruction is vast and it spans over a century with significant growth in the past several decades, as literacy became a major area of focus for educational policy, and we have got sort of smarter scientific tools to measure these things. The total number of research studies, reports and books related to reading instruction likely exceeds hundreds of thousands since the year 2000 alone.

Given the early foundational work dating back to the 1960s and earlier, the overall body of reading research could easily approach or exceed half a million studies worldwide. This includes empirical research, theoretical studies, intervention reports, neuroscience findings, and educational policy analysis. The magnitude of research reflects the complexity of reading as a cognitive process and its critical role in education contributing to the vast number of studies across different disciplines. No wonder then that the teaching of reading is an ambitious, challenging pursuit. Victoria's approach to teaching reading foundation to year two aims to provide consistency of approach to our schools, our teachers and our students as we teach and learn this foundational skill and source of wonder and pleasure. I'm going to invite our wonderful Principal in Residence, Sharon Baker, to share some of the questions that may have arisen from this group.

SHARON BAKER:
Thank you, Cathy, and thank you, Simon. Lots of really good information for us to process so far. We do have quite a few questions coming through. So, I just wanna summarise a couple. And the first one, Simon, I'm wondering if you could just clarify the DE reading position a little further, particularly what is required and what the implementation timeline is.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
No worries. Thanks, Sharon. So, in clarifying the Department of Education's reading position, it's clear and evident in the position paper that it's a requirement of all Victorian government schools to engage their teachers in learning about and implementation of a 20, 25 minutes of systematic synthetic phonics. It's really important to note that schools have three years to implement this using an approach that the department has shared with us around exploring, preparing, delivering and sustaining. So, advice from the Department of Education is clear. It says it's possible that what would be great to start in terms of implementation is looking at that foundation year of school, really thinking about getting it right there and exploring it in that space with the foundation students as our first year of implementation, and then continue to expand over the next three years of implementation into year one and year two. I hope that answers some of the questions, Sharon.

SHARON BAKER:
Yeah, thank you, Simon. That was really helpful. And Cathy, we do have quite a few questions coming through as well about the DE resources. I know you're gonna talk about these a little bit later in the webinar, but just wonder if you could touch on now where we can find them. And I will get that put in the link in the chat that, sorry, I'll get the link put in the chat so that everyone can access them. And also, just a brief explanation about what's available. Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY BUCHANAN-HAGEN:
Sure. Thanks, Sharon. Yeah, so the resources that are available from the department can be found on Arc Education. And Arc Education is the Department of Education's digital platform that provides Victorian teachers access to curriculum aligned resources and professional leading learning opportunities. Excuse me. To find these resources. People can just google Arc Education. And when you're on the landing page, you can just navigate to Phonics Plus, and that will give you some really specific information and specific resources. You'll find here phonics scope and sequence overview, which describes the purpose and the design of Phonics Plus. You'll find a video that will help you understand more about using the phonics plus scope and sequence and its benefits. 
So, there are the overviews, but there are also scopes and sequences. I'm not sure if that's the plural, whether it's scopes and sequence or scopes and sequences for foundation year one and year two are currently there. So, these resources from the department provide a progression of learning of letters, graphemes, and there's corresponding sounds or phonemes.

And they're organised into 36 sets of code. So, at the moment, a sample set of foundation lessons is available currently on Arc. And the rest of the foundation lessons will follow later this term. The advice we have from the department is that the lesson plans for levels one and two will be available in the first half of 2025.

SHARON BAKER:
Thank you, Cathy. And back to you, Cathy and Simon.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
Sharon, so now we're going to delve a little bit deeper into the teaching of reading and the Department of Education's Victorian Teaching Learning Model 2.0. It's really important to know that in the timing of the webinar, we don't really have an opportunity to go deeply into each of the Big 6. So, what we're going to do is frame up some of your thinking around the Victorian teaching and learning model, specifically the teaching elements within the model with the view of systematic synthetic phonics instruction. So, firstly, some background information. So, in June 2024, as most of you probably know, 
the Minister of Education announced a revised Victorian teaching and learning model called the VTLM 2.0 to be implemented across all Victorian government schools by 2028. The VTLM 2.0 provides an evidence-informed framework for teaching learning across all learning areas. But it is particularly pertinent to understanding the Department of Education's position on reading The elements of learning provide a clear and evidence-informed foundation predicated on cognitive science and psychology and neuroscience to ensure we take into account the process of human learning.

These elements essentially address four key principles that learning is the change in long, to long-term memory. Student process limits the amounts of new information. Students develop and demonstrate mastery. And students are actively engaged when learning. The elements of teaching complement this by again detailing evidence-informed teaching practices that most effectively support learning through planning, enabling learning, otherwise known as establishing the preconditions for effective learning, explicit teaching and supported application. So, within the stages of planning for systematic synthetic phonics through the lens of the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0, planning essentially is the element of teaching that allows us to hone in on the elements of learning in attention, focus and regulation, knowledge and memory, retention and recall, and mastery in application. So, within the planning stage, while noting that systematic synthetic phonics involves explicit teaching of decoding and encoding phoning through a multisensory literacy approach, we ask teachers to consider the following when they're in planning for a systematic synthetic phonics program.

It's important to plan new learning so it can be broken up into small and manageable chunk plans for the use of ongoing monitoring and other forms of assessment in combination with the school for scope and sequence plans to understand each learner's developmental pathway and track their growth in phonic skills and understanding. It's important that teachers are able to plan for daily teaching of new concepts and the retrieval and connection to prior learning. And it's important that teachers plan to introduce the elements of the code systematically progressing from simple to more complex code. And finally, it's vital that teachers in our schools work collaboratively with colleagues to share best practice and support each other in this really important stage and element of teaching and planning. Planning as a teaching element needs to take into account all of the elements of learning. Its foundation of great planning hinges on assessment and anecdotal evidence that teachers collect about their student progress.

When exploring what enabling learning means through the lens of systematic synthetic phonics, we're really drawing attention to the elements of learning of attention, focus and regulation and knowledge and memory. In enabling learning or establishing the preconditions for effective learning, teachers can consider the following. Think about when you're teaching systematic synthetic phonics, how do you ensure that distractions are reduced to increase that engagement? That's where planning comes in here. It's vital. And teachers need to creatively act and model curiosity to their students, building on their motivations and interests, instructional and classroom routines that you establish with your students at the beginning of the year, also ongoing through the year support students to be focused on learning tasks and ensuring that the physical equipment that kids need in order to be successful at learning through the systematic synthetic phonics approach are ready at hand and accessible to them.

The teacher is the expert and can act responsibly to the needs and the developmental stages of the students in their classroom. It's important to note that when enabling learning, you think about the different ways that you can enable or kids to check for their understanding, how you provide them with the opportunities to respond, how do you provide them with the opportunities to move and interact? Which again, when I refer to the multisensory approach to learning, using gestural cues and actions and being actively engaged in their learning, and really thinking about addressing that misconception around the structured literacy approach being that the kids are sitting passively learning during this approach. So, enabling learning really hones in on the teacher's understanding of how they engage their learners in the classroom to be actively engaged in this process. When we talk about explicit teaching of systematic synthetic phonics, we talk about teaching phonics explicitly using precise language and to explain phonic concepts and rules.

It's important that teachers demonstrate and model the application of phonic skills through modelled reading and writing. It's important that we provide opportunities for students to practice skills under direct guidance of the teacher. It's about demonstrating the connection between phonological awareness activities and financing instruction to strengthen their understanding. It's about using both decodables and language rich text to reinforce students' understanding of the code. And it's about using that clearly defined scope and sequence that your school has developed to make sure that you are engaging the students in increasingly more complex grapheme phoneme correspondences as they learn the code and move through the scope and sequence. Sequencing phonics instruction is vital in explicit teaching. 
It helps build on previously acquired knowledge of the code. Teachers need to first learn how to pronounce and identify teaching students how to first learn and pronounce sorry and identify individual sounds, and then blend them to form words.

It's about explicitly teaching students to segment sounds and spell words to make the link between reading and writing. Explicit teaching is about emphasising repeated exposure and interactions with the code. If we consider what it means under the lens of supported application, this is really where we're honing in on the element of learning of mastery and application. If we think about this in reference to a systematic synthetic phonics program to support the application of phonic learning, teachers can regularly monitor and track student progress to identify growth and highlight areas that may need additional support. And some of the great resources that are being provided or developed by schools help fit with this particularly scope and sequence plans and assessment mapping. It's about teachers using their evidence that they collect in an ongoing way to adjust their instruction and their teaching strategies that they use so that they're maximising the engagement of students. It's about providing that ongoing safe and corrective feedback to students as they learn the code and the skills acquired to acquire the code.

It's about positive acknowledging when they've used skills and concepts accurately. And it's about embedding new knowledge with opportunities for independent application. It's about providing regular and varied opportunities for students to engage in frequent review of previously learned concepts through space practice and retrieval. There are lots of opportunities to support the application of learning. Most importantly, the things that we develop with our students in terms of that explicit teaching and how we support them to master the application of teaching can be co-developed and shared with the students as you develop your classroom with them and your classroom learning environment. So, the important part that hinges on all of this is the role that texts play in helping students to acquire the code through the systematic synthetic phonic explicit teaching approach. There's lots of questions coming from all corners of our system about the reference to the implications for schools and educators about what are the best resources to use to develop and deliver instruction through literature.

What we're suggesting is that children benefit greatly by engaging in many forms of text. Whilst the new reading position highlights decodables are a fantastic resource for supporting students to learn to read. There has been some questions raised around the system around to the extent in which decodable should be employed. The Victorian Curriculum 2.0 outlines the types of texts to be used in reading F-2, and you can find these within the context of descriptors of literacy and the sub-strands of building fluency and making meaning, making reference to both decodables and authentic texts within our curriculum. It's important for us to understand that while each of these are, and how, what each of these are and how they can be used to gain the maximum benefit and impact student learning. Decodables include text that emphasise code within a given systematic synthetic phonics sequence. And they help facilitate student practice and are developed to replicate that sequence established. Once again, it's about moving from that simple to complex in phonics instruction.

The other part of the discussion that we have around exploring text is looking at what rich literature is already available within our schools. It's important to note that many picture story books written by published authors allow for teachers and students to explore the world through the eyes of that author. They can be used as well to support the development of rich language reservoirs that students can draw on to support meaning-making when reading and to help them craft rich texts when writing. Particularly in the early years, teacher-led reading of literature can also support students to continue to develop and expand their oral language capacity with significant implications, positive implications for reading comprehension later on. When we look at some guidelines for employing decodable text, there are really three that come into play. Students are still in the process of learning to decode. And decodable text can support this process by providing them with significant opportunities for purposeful practice as they progress systematically through the code.

In determining how and what point to use decodable, there are some basic principles that can be followed with support teachers, with support teachers to make informed decisions about their (UNKNOWN). Firstly, decodable text designed to be appropriately accessible at various stages as of progression through the code. It's essential that students are practising with decodable that reflect the stage in which they're pursuing mastery. To further extrapolate on that point, decodable should be used in a timely and ordered manner to reinforce learning. The benefits of decodable text is in the opportunity that they forced students to practice what they're learning. As discussed previously, they do not preclude teaching using teacher led exploration of other texts. So, where to next, Cathy?

CATHY BUCHANAN-HAGEN:
Yeah, thanks, Simon. That's exactly what we're gonna be looking at where to next. So, we have a slide here of implementation advice. So, this will be sort of done differently depending on where a school is at with the or with the implementation of a systematic synthetics program. And I can't believe how difficult it is to say systematic synthetics program. It's really, difficult. So, if your school is presently using a systematic synthetics program, just continue with it. And if you are happy with it and if it's being successful and your students are learning really well, continue. But I think if I was in that situation, I would also make sure that I access the resources on Arc education and just sort of identify whether there are any skills that really need to be honed or any sort of strategies that we need to focus on in our school. You don't need to though, if you feel that you have a successful program already running, you don't need to replace them. But as I said, you might wish to supplement your existing program with some of the resources on that site.

For schools, the who are newer to systematic synthetics phonics. They'll have three years to transition their instruction and approaches starting next year. For these schools, it's really advised that a careful and staged implementation approach is best. So, this involves exploring the research, the key definitions and instruction associated with systematic synthetic phonics. And I think to leaders and instructional leaders in the school, it's probably a good idea. I think you'll be able to audit where you are and then sort of work out put into your AIP where you're gonna go next to sort of start really building and developing these tighter programs. So, the schools, yeah, as part of the implementation process, also preparing for the adoption by reflecting on what strategies and resources can continue to be used, what may need to be added and maybe some things that may need to cease. And then to begin by, for the next step, I think would be to really provide professional learning for staff so that everybody knows exactly what a great learning pro', a reading program looks like.

And then make sure that whatever you're implementing it, setting your teachers and your students up for success. OK, so the next slide talks a little bit about the resources, which we've gone into quite a bit of detail. These are the resources that we spoke about, developed by the Department of Education, Language and Literacy team. These are the resources that are on the Arc Education website. And to access these resources, this is the web address that you will go to. OK, so for those of you who are looking to build teacher and leader capacity, the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership continue to offer a range of literacy programs in our literacy suite, and they'll continue in 2025. The Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership is instrumental in building teaching excellence. And this program, the TEP Program, Teaching Excellence Program is changing the profession. It has a remarkable endorsement from its participants. Over 90% indicate that it's really impacted their practice.

More importantly, teachers are also saying that this program has kept them in the profession, which is an incredibly important factor as currently up to 50% of our teachers leave the profession in their first five years. I can personally endorse the impact of this wonderful program having been in the inaugural group of TEP teachers in 2022, and then became an alumni community facilitator in 2023 and an English Master Teacher in residence in 2024. The Teaching Excellence Program is a year long, cross-sectoral professional learning for highly skilled teachers with three plus years experience. And this is where it sets it apart from almost all, in fact, probably all other learning experiences, professional learning experiences for teachers. When you become a TEP teacher, you'll have access to the latest evidence-informed research, you'll have support from experts in key learning areas. Principals can nominate teachers, and I would ask that you consider nominating one or more of your teachers.

Teachers can apply directly if they have their principal's endorsement. The program is fully subsidised. And all days out of the classroom are funded for casual relief teaching and regional teachers receive travel and accommodation funding. Graduates of the TEP are eligible to apply for teaching impact fellowships, providing a pathway for excellent teachers to raise the capability and status of teachers through applied and self-directed professional learning and knowledge, and to continue their incredible TEP experience by becoming an active alumni network member. So, I would also invite people to subscribe to the Academy direct to find out about all the incredible offerings that we have for educators and leaders. So, check this space.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
Thanks, Cathy. It's really great to acknowledge some of the great work that the Academy's doing to support Victorian teachers. So, hopefully, our session today has provided you with an understanding of the evidence base of Victoria's approach to teaching reading, and it's also helped you understand how to ground some of that and connect some of that to the new Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0. 
And also, thinking a little bit about systematic synthetic phonics and its role within a broad and comprehensive learning program. Hopefully, we have afforded you the opportunity to learn 
at this high level the overview of the implications of evidence-informed reading. Specifically, we hope you've walked away with some greater knowledge of how you can begin to have conversations at a school level in preparation for implementation or review in 2025. I'm just going to invite again Sharon as one of our question moderators to come back onto the screen and share with us some of the other questions that have come through since the last Q&A.

They've been working through those questions in the background. Remember, there's quite a large audience, so we probably won't be able to get to every single question, but we're really looking at some of those key themes that are coming through from the system and trying to understand how we can support better teachers, better to understand the new reading approach. So, Sharon, are you able to give us a little bit more information about what's being asked from participant today?

SHARON BAKER:
Sure. Yeah, happy to Simon. And we have had quite a lot of questions coming through today, especially since the last question break that we had. And apologies that we're not going to get to all of the questions today, but we will do our best to provide answers to the questions that we've been asked. And we will most likely create a frequently asked questions resource, which we'll be popping on our resources page. So, if your question isn't answered today, keep checking back to our resources page and you may find the answers there. But Cathy, a question for you. Somebody has asked, "Does the 25 minutes a day of explicit teaching of phonics sit outside the reading block or within it?"

CATHY BUCHANAN-HAGEN:
Yeah, that's a really good question, Sharon. Thank you for that. So, advice from the department is that phonics plus lessons will represent the first hour of a literacy block, and that will include the phonics component, but other components as well. And then in the second half of that two-hour literacy block, Victorian English lesson plans, we'll provide the second half of the literacy block. So, I would be watching this space when it comes to Arc education to have a look at advice, further advice from the department about how that will actually sit, but that's 25 minutes of phonics will be an entire block in itself. Thank you, Cathy. Simon, there's been a few schools who've indicated that this approach is new for them this year. Where do you recommend they start?

SIMON O'BRIEN:
That's a really great question, Sharon. And one we've already sort of fielded across a number of webinars. I think what schools need to do really is start looking at their current practice and think about the Big 6 and the VTLM 2.0, the learning elements and teaching elements, and think about auditing their current practice against those two key Department of Education documents. Think about what are the things that you already do that align closely with what's being suggested in the research and reference material, but also start to ask each other questions around what might not be happening or what might need to be strengthened at a school level. I think too, as a combination to that, Sharon, is the auditing tool will really give a really clear understanding of what the needs of the teaching workforce within a school might look like in terms of their professional knowledge and understanding of the approach. And I think the next part of that would be really working with school leadership and leadership teams to understand how they're going to upskill teachers in the new approach and thinking about the different resources that Cathy has mentioned.

And there are numerous resources already available to schools, and there are a lot more coming from the Department of Education to really think about how we can create time and space within our school's professional learning architecture to really unpack and have rigorous discussions, talk to each other about the things that resonate with us, and really provide that opportunity for teachers to engage in reflective critical challenge, but also affirming them of the great work that they've been doing for so many years that align with the department's new position on reading. So, I think auditing current practice is vital and the upskilling of teachers is really important within their knowledge and skills before jumping in and starting a systematic synthetic phonics approach because it's important that our teachers have that really great content knowledge and that pedagogical understanding of what's best work for kids in this space. And then they're able to make those decisions about what's the best approach in terms of revealing and understanding what students need within their learning and that explicit instruction.

And then they're able to then combine those two things to really look at what is it going, what are the quality things that we're going to do, whether they're tasks, learning experiences that allow our students to connect with that content and to grow in their knowledge of systematic synthetic phonics and more broadly the Big 6. I hope that's helpful.

SHARON BAKER:
Great. Great. Yes, thank you, Simon. Appreciate that very much. And Simon, I'm gonna hand the last question back to you as well. And I think we will end on this one today. We have had a lot of inquiries about what is expected beyond F-2, especially in years three to six.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
That's a great question, Sharon. And it's certainly another one that we've been building from the system quite a bit in recent months. Look, the Department of Education position is really clear. The focus is on foundation F-2 and the explicit teaching of systematic synthetic phonics within the Big 6. It's about having three years to implement that in F-2. But beyond three to six, it doesn't mean F-2, looking at three to six and even into secondary school education, it doesn't mean we throw everything out and start from scratch adopting different approaches within the Big 6. Really, it's about understanding that we keep continuing to do the great work we're doing in that space, thinking about how we can use what we know about systematic synthetic phonics, how students learn the code, how students are able to use the skills in order to encode and decode so they're effective readers and writers, how that works in relation to how fluent they're when they read. And really think about do we have that level of skillset within our students in year three to six and beyond.

And start thinking about if we don't, if there are some concerns around that space for students in year three to six, what might be missing. We know that comprehension is the endpoint or the development of really good ability to use the code to understand and read with accuracy and fluency. And then we're able to then see what kinds of things might be going on for our students in year three to six, if they're struggling with comprehension. So, not focusing specifically on comprehension, but really looking at what are those, some of those constrained skills, as Cathy talked about earlier, that might be holding our kids back from achieving higher levels of learning and reading. So, in a nutshell, three to six advice from the Department of Education and information as shared by us. Keep doing what you're doing, but really sit alongside the teachers in F-2 and learn along with them as well, because there's gonna be some great information and resources available that are gonna support teachers across the whole school to build their knowledge 
of this work.

Thanks, Sharon.

SHARON BAKER:
Thank you, Simon.

SIMON O'BRIEN:
OK. I can't believe how quickly the session has gone, but we really are committed to continuous improvement at the academy, and it's really important that we acknowledge that your viewpoint on the impact of professional learning is crucial for us to ensure that our professional learning that we provide you is refined where necessary and meets those needs of the participants. And it also helps us ensure that we're increasing impact on teachers and leaders. I invite you to participate 
in the evaluation impact that impact evaluation that's on the screen through the QR code. These are regularly conducted by the academy to understand how the professional learning offered impacts school leadership and teaching practice and its flow on effect to student learning outcomes. If you'd like to take roughly five to ten minutes post the webinar to complete the survey after the session, it'd be really helpful for us in understanding where we landed in terms of developing your understanding of the new approach to reading specifically systematic synthetic phonics, and also your understanding in a little bit more deeper way around the Victorian Teaching and Learning 
Model 2.0.

We really thank you for that. And to finish off, I wanna say thank you to the team behind the scenes. So, Sharon, for our question, moderation and really being responsive to the needs of our participants on the screen and synthesising and capturing some of those key themes around what people are wanting to understand to our director, Emily, for introducing us and really creating that safe, welcoming space at the beginning. And to my 
co-facilitator, Cathy, for her wealth 
of knowledge that she shared with you as one of our master teachers in the teaching excellence program, it's been absolute pleasure to work alongside everyone at the academy, including those behind the scenes, running all the technical components of the work you see. I wanna say... And most importantly, when I think our participants for really creating that protected time to come to with us and to learn from us. And we really hope that this has been a really helpful session and we look forward to presenting some more.