TWENTY schools have been identified as requiring special
intervention as part of an effort to boost the region's literacy standards.
English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA) results
for 2007 show the number of students achieving in the highest literacy band
in the Hunter-Central Coast region was almost 3 per cent behind the rest
of the state.
Overall, the region lags behind the state averages in writing, reading
language by about half a per cent.
The Department of Education push to improve standards comes as parents
and literacy tutors call for a significant boost in school literacy resources.
Department regional director John Mather declined to identify the schools
that were participating in the intervention program but said they were
spread across the region. The region's school literacy targets
have been set in-line with the State Plan.
"It's very easy to say the students in our part of the world aren't
as good, but they can be as good," he said.
"My focus is to lift those levels and we are putting a lot of effort
into that through a number of programs."
"It's fair to say that at the higher levels we need to be working
harder."
"Across the region we have identified about 20 schools that we are
focusing on."
Former school teacher and private literacy tutor Diane
Philipson said she was not surprised the region's ELLA test results were
below the state average.
"The issue of poor literacy seems to be Australia-wide,
but the problem does seem to be worse in this area," Ms Philipson
said.
Ms Philipson, who spent 30 years as a classroom teacher, works with about
12 students with reading and writing using phonics, a sound-based system
of learning to read.
"Spelling seems to be a huge problem across the board, that's mainly
because a lot of teachers can't spell themselves," she said.
One parent recently contacted Ms Philipson after receiving a copy of her
child's spelling test.
The 7-year-old had spelt "them" as "eim", "shop" as "hips" and "here" as "weh".
The State Government said NSW students had the second highest literacy standards
in the world following the release of the 2007 ELLA test results in May. |