This essay emerges out of conversations with early career English teachers about their experiences of teaching literature. During those conversations, they reflected on their own literary socialisation, including the reading they did at home and at school, as well as their tertiary education. They then considered what they had learnt as teachers…

Compelling international evidence illustrates the potential of reading for pleasure for enhancing student reading achievement along with other learning and wellbeing outcomes. Yet profound challenges exist for nations seeking to encompass attention to students' volitional reading. In this paper we critically review the growing research evidence in…

This paper reports a systematic narrative synthesis review conducted on the educational effectiveness of genre theory/systemic functional linguistics pedagogies for improving reading and writing outcomes in K-10 education within mainstream classrooms in Australia, the UK, the USA, New Zealand, and Canada. This framework has significant influence…

Purpose: Nearly 50 years ago, Durkin (1978-1979) conducted a seminal observation study on reading comprehension teaching in Grades 3 through 6. She reported that teachers rarely taught reading comprehension (less than 1% of instructional time). Since then, we have gained substantial knowledge about teaching reading comprehension. We aimed to…

Coverage of reading and reading instruction in initial teacher education is highly contested, with the "reading wars" representing decades of debate concerning approaches that should be promoted to teachers-in-training. Empirical evidence strongly endorses explicit and systematic teaching of code-based skills as a starting point,…

This article presents the outcomes of a study conducted in Victoria, Australia, that recognised teachers' knowledge and understanding of phonics teaching, and early literacy acquisition processes more generally. In total, 45 teachers and 220 students from the 18 focus schools who engaged in the reform initiative agreed to participate in this…

Recent research in the United States suggests that student performance differences between private and public schools disappear once student and school level characteristics are controlled for. This is an important result as it suggests that in the absence of such differences delivery of education through public means can be as efficient as that…

In this paper, we report the initial stages of Response to Intervention (RTI) implementation in one school that participated in the Getting it Right from the Start (GIRFTS) pilot study. Implementation of an RTI framework for oral language and reading was supported by teacher professional learning and a dedicated Implementation Support Partner…

In this article, I respond creatively to the recent Australian Government Department of Education Teacher education expert panel [TEEP] report entitled "Strong Beginnings." Released in July 2023 and led by Professor Mark Scott AO, the report outlines problems pertaining to teacher education in Australia. It aims to improve student…

This article explores primary school teachers' views and practices in literacy instruction to support students' word knowledge development. This study provides insights into how primary school teachers with a deep interest in literacy understand and apply the literacy strategies they employ in their classrooms, and how previous professional…

This fully updated third edition of "Teaching and Learning with Technologies in the Primary School" introduces practising and student teachers to the range of ways in which technology can be used to support and extend teaching and learning opportunities in their classrooms. Newly expanded to include 50% brand new chapters reflecting the…

Narrative inquiry has long been respected as a qualitative approach to researching the lived experiences of participants. Used widely in educational research the approach enables insights into the practices, perspectives and preferences of teachers, most often considering a small number of participants within a close circle of influence. In…

Purpose: We report the qualitative findings from a survey of elementary teachers regarding reading instruction. The purpose is to extend on quantitative findings in a previously described survey to gain a more in-depth understanding of Australian elementary teachers' approaches to the literacy block in their schools: how this is used, who makes…