Now every child can learn to read thanks to a revolutionary reading program developed by a researcher at Â鶹ÊÓƵ of Queensland.
The Reading LINK-Decoding program is the first element of a highly successful system for teaching literacy to be made accessible to all schools. It was developed by Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s Dr Carol Christensen, a senior lecturer in the and leading literacy expert.
Based on extensive research data, the program was designed to teach anyone to read, including children thought to have disorders such as dyslexia Dr Christensen said.
“There are Australian high school students who haven’t even attained a year one reading level, and this is an indictment of the teaching methods used.
“Some of the things in my programs meet resistance, but we know that students have to build a firm foundation of good skills, which is fundamentally what the Reading LINK-Decoding program is about.”
The program is based on the “decoding” process, where readers turn the letters on the page into spoken language. Teachers have been told that decoding was a low-level, unimportant skill, according to Dr Christensen.
“However, research shows that decoding forms the foundation of sophisticated literacy skills,” she said.
Dr Christensen’s program has been published as a package by Knowledge Books and Software, who licensed the publishing rights from Â鶹ÊÓƵ’s commercialisation arm,
UniQuest Managing Director David Henderson said the Reading LINK-Decoding program was a great example of successful academic research being made accessible to the Australian public.
The program was developed from a whole of school literacy system developed by Dr Christensen and successfully trialed in Queensland and Victorian schools.
“With the whole school literacy program, we routinely improved the reading and writing ability of children by two to three years,” Dr Christensen said.
“And the accomplishments of the program are not restricted to students` literacy rates, we made fundamental changes in motivation and saw improvements in subjects right across the board,” she said.
Three of the schools involved in the whole of school program – Kirwan State High School, Balmoral State High School and St Francis College, Creastmead – were recognised in the 2005 National Literacy and Numeracy Awards with Kirwan taking out a National Award for Excellence.
The Reading LINK-Decoding program will be officially launched at Â鶹ÊÓƵ today [8 November 2005] by Mr Ken Smith, Director-General of the Queensland Department of Education and the Arts.
Media are invited to attend the launch at the James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre (Building 11) at Â鶹ÊÓƵ of Queensland, St Lucia at 5.45pm.
For interviews on Tuesday 8 November, contact Dr Carol Christensen on 07 3365 5534 or 07 3876 8046; Julia Renaud on 07 3365 6937 or Melinda Midgley on 07 3365 8820.
