International and national data continue to identify poor literacy standards among secondary school students. The researchers, in collaboration with a metropolitan secondary school in Perth, Western Australia, elected to use the Direct Instruction Reading Mastery program to improve students' reading skills. Data on reading performance was…

Examined ways early childhood teachers in three Australian schools rationalized children's literacy failure on Queensland's Year 2 Diagnostic Net. Found that teachers' narratives clustered into three groups: blaming families, blaming children, and moving beyond blame to focus on teaching; all teachers based pedagogical intervention decisions on a…

Reports results of two national literacy and numeracy testing programs in Australia revealing that there is a sizable fringe group of people unable to function effectively because they cannot meet minimal demands of reading skills. (JL)

An abbreviated battery of eight screening tests was administered to 407 White first-grade boys. Discriminant analysis showed that 75 percent of those identified as being at high risk of reading failure did exhibit severe or mild comprehension problems in third grade. (Author/SJL)

The inadequate literacy skills of some individuals in Australia: (1) restrict their ability to exercise informed citizenship, participate in their local communities, and use their abilities and talents; (2) damage their development as autonomous, competent, and confident individuals within families; (3) may be repeated in successive generations,…

A study examined reading performance, metacognitive knowledge about reading, awareness of the conventions about print, perceptions of reading ability, and causal attributions for success and failure in reading of children with reading difficulties in Year 2 in Australia. One hundred children from the Brisbane region were involved in the…

This study quantitatively analyzed the structure of Reading Recovery lessons for children with hearing loss by examining and comparing the supportive interactions of three Reading Recovery teachers of 12 children with hearing loss and three Reading Recovery teachers of 12 hearing children. All of the children were in the second year of primary…