Literacy learning difficulties in Australian primary schools: who are the children identified and how do their schools and teachers support them?

Literacy learning difficulties in Australian primary schools: who are the children identified and how do their schools and teachers support them? Introduction The National Literacy Plan outlined in Literacy for All (DEETYA1998, p. 7) indicates that it is no longer accepted as inevitable that asignificant proportion of students will not achieve literacy skills atthe minimum level. The Plan sets the clear goal `that no child will beprevented from making progress in education at school because ofinadequate competence in literacy' (DEETYA 1998, p. 17). To achievethis goal the National Plan focuses on the need for early identificationof literacy difficulties, early intervention ear��ly interventionn. Abbr. EIA process of assessment and therapy provided to children, especially those younger than age 6, to facilitate normal cognitive and emotional development and to prevent developmental disability or delay. and other forms of supportin order for all students to achieve successful literacy outcomes. Italso recognises the difference in the student population across states,territories and systems; the diverse nature of schools and theircommunities; the differing needs of individual students; and the rangeof teaching and learning styles that can best serve a heterogeneouscommunity. In order to help schools cater for students whose progress could beimpeded im��pede?tr.v. im��ped��ed, im��ped��ing, im��pedesTo retard or obstruct the progress of. See Synonyms at hinder1.[Latin imped by limited literacy competence, the Mapping the Territory report(Louden et al. 2000) was commissioned by DETYA DETYA Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (now DEST DEST DestinationDEST DestroyDEST Department of Education, Science and Training (Australia)DEST Department of the Environment, Sport and Territories (Australia)). Its aim wasto provide a national picture of how students with learningdifficulties/disabilities are supported in their literacy and numeracy numeracyMathematical literacy Neurology The ability to understand mathematical concepts, perform calculations and interpret and use statistical information. Cf Acalculia. learning in regular school settings and to identify successfulstrategies for addressing the literacy and numeracy needs of thesestudents. In meeting the project brief, the research team developed atemplate of key issues that included amongst others, identification andprevalence of learning difficulties and programs and strategies tosupport students with learning difficulties. This paper is based on findings from the Mapping the Territory (1)study and a follow-up study Supporting Students with LearningDifficulties in a School of the Air (2) (Rivalland, Rohl & Smith2001). We look briefly at issues surrounding the definition of learningdifficulties, with particular reference to the Australian context, weprovide a brief overview of the two studies, including methodologies,and we look in some detail at six students who were identified by theirschools as having difficulty in learning literacy. In addition weexamine what their schools were doing to support these students and drawsome conclusions about how schools and teachers can effectively supportthe literacy learning of students who do not make expected progress. Definitions: Learning difficulty or learning disability? Defining and identifying those children who have difficulty inlearning literacy is a vexed and confusing issue. Allington (2002) hasdescribed how in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , learning difficulties has beenredefined as learning disabilities, for which there is no `commonlyaccepted definition' (p. 266). He explains this redefinition Noun 1. redefinition - the act of giving a new definition; "words like `conservative' require periodic redefinition"; "she provided a redefinition of his duties"definition - a concise explanation of the meaning of a word or phrase or symbol from asocial constructivist con��struc��tiv��ism?n.A movement in modern art originating in Moscow in 1920 and characterized by the use of industrial materials such as glass, sheet metal, and plastic to create nonrepresentational, often geometric objects. perspective and attributes it to various factorswithin the US context, including the fact that identification oflearning disability qualifies children for additional educationalfunding and excludes them from taking part in state education testing.It is therefore in the interests of schools who want to show improvedperformance in literacy for low achieving children to be identified. Within the Australian context, where identification is not tied tofunding or exclusion from state testing, the use of the terms learningdifficulty and learning disability is quite different, but as we shallsee, can still be confusing. Elkins (2002, this volume) has clarifiedthe confusion at a general level as follows: In Australia the label learning disabilities is usually restricted to a small group of students with persistent problems, whereas learning difficulties describes the experience of a larger group of students who do not respond well to their classroom programs. (p. 11) Nevertheless, the schools that took part in the Mapping theTerritory project varied in the terms they used to describe students whowere experiencing difficulty in literacy learning. In some casesindividual staff members within one school used different terms. Notonly did the terms used by schools and teachers differ, but even whenschools used the same terms they sometimes included different groups ofstudents in their definition. This became apparent as the researchersobserved the individual children identified by the schools in the study.The schools identified a wide range of students who were experiencingdifficulty in literacy. Some were of low general cognitive ability; somehad behavioural Adj. 1. behavioural - of or relating to behavior; "behavioral sciences"behavioral problems often diagnosed as ADD/ADHD and some were fromparticular linguistic, cultural or family backgrounds. The difficultiesof a small proportion of the identified students could have been seen as'intrinsic to the individual and not a direct result of otherconditions or influences', an essential component of manydefinitions of learning disability and most definitions of specificlearning disability (Chan & Dally 2000). It seems that in practice, within the Australian context as Elkinshas described, `learning disability' is often used to refer tothose students who may, or may not have taken part in interventionprograms in the early years, but need ongoing support in later years ofschool. The students identified in the Mapping the Territory report whoparticipated in intervention programs in the early years tended to fallinto two groups: those who were slow to get started in formal learning,whose difficulties were considered to be transient; and those whosedifficulties were more severe and likely to need long-term support, whomight well be diagnosed at a later date as learning disabled. Methodology The Mapping the Territory study adopted a multiple method approachto research, attempting to provide both a comprehensive nationaloverview and a close-up local view of the circumstances of individualchildren in particular school settings. To this end, five separate datacollection strategies were developed: a literature review, mapping ofsector and system provisions, surveys of pre-service and in-serviceeducation, a survey of school-level provision, and a set of school casestudies. Together, these methods allowed for progressive focussing onissues. The case studies used qualitative research Qualitative researchTraditional analysis of firm-specific prospects for future earnings. It may be based on data collected by the analysts, there is no formal quantitative framework used to generate projections. methods to explore thefocus issues. Twenty schools from New South Wales New South Wales,state (1991 pop. 5,164,549), 309,443 sq mi (801,457 sq km), SE Australia. It is bounded on the E by the Pacific Ocean. Sydney is the capital. The other principal urban centers are Newcastle, Wagga Wagga, Lismore, Wollongong, and Broken Hill. , Queensland, SouthAustralia South Australia,state (1991 pop. 1,236,623), 380,070 sq mi (984,381 sq km), S central Australia. It is bounded on the S by the Indian Ocean. Kangaroo Island and many smaller islands off the south coast are included in the state. , Victoria and Western Australia Western Australia,state (1991 pop. 1,409,965), 975,920 sq mi (2,527,633 sq km), Australia, comprising the entire western part of the continent. It is bounded on the N, W, and S by the Indian Ocean. Perth is the capital. were chosen for participationin the study. School selection was guided by the belief that the casestudies should each represent some aspect of excellence in theirprovision for children with learning difficulties. The case studyschools were also selected to represent a cross-section of schoolsectors, locations, school sizes and socio-economic circumstances ofparents. For ethical reasons, schools, teachers, parents and childrenwere identified by code names and some identifying details were changed. Data collection included interviews with teachers, schooladministrators and parents, analysis of school documents, andobservations of individual children in classrooms and other contexts.Data were recorded in verbatim ver��ba��tim?adj.Using exactly the same words; corresponding word for word: a verbatim report of the conversation.adv. notes or transcripts of audio-tapes andwritten field-notes. In order to reduce the difficulty of cross-caseanalysis, each case study was presented in a common format. The firstdraft of each case study was reviewed by another member of the researchteam, revised and returned to schools in accordance with ethicalrequirements agreed by the researchers' universities and negotiatedwith individual schools. Further details of the methodology can be foundin Louden (2000). Since it was not possible to include a case study of a school in aremote location in the Mapping the Territory study, a group ofresearchers undertook the follow-up study Supporting Students withLearning Difficulties in a School of the Air (Rivalland, Rohl &Smith 2001). This study was informed by the methodology of the schoolcase studies in Mapping the Territory. It took the form of amulti-layered case study of one School of the Air, which includedamongst its staff a Support Officer Learning Difficulties. In this paper we describe five children from the Mapping theTerritory case study schools and one from Supporting Students withLearning Difficulties in a School of the Air. These children exemplify ex��em��pli��fy?tr.v. ex��em��pli��fied, ex��em��pli��fy��ing, ex��em��pli��fies1. a. To illustrate by example: exemplify an argument.b. the heterogeneity het��er��o��ge��ne��i��tyn.The quality or state of being heterogeneous.heterogeneitythe state of being heterogeneous. of the group of children who were identified, usuallyby their schools, as having difficulty in learning literacy. We beginwith two students near the end of their primary school years who hadexperienced literacy difficulties for some time. We then describe a Year5 student who was experiencing difficulties in coping with theparticular demands of a School of the Air and a Year 3 student for whomEnglish was not a first language. Our other two students wereexperiencing some difficulties as they began formal schooling in Year 1. The students Owen, Year 6 (Nichols 2000) Owen was a Year 6 student at a private school in which there was anintensive specialist program for students diagnosed as specific learningdisabled/dyslexic. A serious boy who worked conscientiously con��sci��en��tious?adj.1. Guided by or in accordance with the dictates of conscience; principled: a conscientious decision to speak out about injustice.2. in class,Owen was a competitive sports player and, according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. his mother,thought of himself as a `champion'. His parents became concerned about his educational progress, whenby Year 2 he seemed unable to read simple books and was behind hisclassmates Classmates can refer to either: Classmates.com, a social networking website. Classmates (film), a 2006 Malayalam blockbuster directed by Lal Jose, starring Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Indragith, Sunil, Jagathy, Kavya Madhavan, Balachandra Menon, ... in literacy. Through the SPELD organisation they werereferred to a psychologist. Owen was tested and diagnosed as dyslexic dys��lex��icor dys��lec��ticadj.Of or relating to dyslexia.n.A person affected by dyslexia. ,with strengths in the areas of fine motor coordination Gross motor coordination addresses the gross motor skills: walking, running, climbing, jumping, crawling, lifting one's head, sitting up, etc.Fine motor coordination and generalintelligence. As a Year 2 student, Owen was not old enough to join thespecialist program at his school and, as there was no formal earlyintervention withdrawal program, Owen's parents organised privatetutoring for him, employing two tutors, one from SPELD, and one from theschool to work individually with him. At the beginning of Year 3, Owenbegan the specialist program with a teacher who had been trained throughthe British Dyslexia dyslexia(dĭslĕk`sēə), in psychology, a developmental disability in reading or spelling, generally becoming evident in early schooling. To a dyslexic, letters and words may appear reversed, e.g. Association in a structured phonics phonicsMethod of reading instruction that breaks language down into its simplest components. Children learn the sounds of individual letters first, then the sounds of letters in combination and in simple words. multisensoryprogram. Owen's classroom program included specific skills as well asintegrated units of work. For spelling, students were regularly testedon list words they had spelled incorrectly in their written work. Theywere encouraged to use a range of strategies to learn spellings, such as`look-cover-write-check' and `say aloud, spell aloud'.Activities were based on the list of words, for example, `list them inalphabetical order', `place them in sentences'. When Owenproduced an accurate piece of spelling work in his book, his teacherpraised him lavishly with comments such as, `Owen you are alegend!' His spelling book a book with exercises for teaching children to spell; a speller.See also: Spelling showed that he was able to learn a listof words and reproduce it reasonably accurately within a shorttime-frame. However, he quite often mis-spelled the same words whentested on them later. Mis-spellings were generally due to letter pairreversals (`strated' for `started'), insertion of letters(honersty'), or deletion deletion/de��le��tion/ (de-le��shun) in genetics, loss of genetic material from a chromosome. de��le��tionn.Loss, as from mutation, of one or more nucleotides from a chromosome. of letters (`patent' for`patient'). His writing was characterised by missing words and word parts. Owenwas observed to take 15 minutes to produce the following text: `TheGreat War should be rememer [crossed out] remembrance becsome the peoplewho fough save al'. In order to circumvent cir��cum��vent?tr.v. cir��cum��vent��ed, cir��cum��vent��ing, cir��cum��vents1. To surround (an enemy, for example); enclose or entrap.2. To go around; bypass: circumvented the city. Owen's auditory auditory/au��di��to��ry/ (aw��di-tor?e)1. aural or otic; pertaining to the ear.2. pertaining to hearing.au��di��to��ryadj. processing difficulties the class teacher ensured all importantinstructions were written on assignment sheets as well as spoken. Owen was in his fifth year of support and his third in thespecialist multi-sensory program. In this program, students did not moveon to another sound, word group or skill until the current aspect oflearning had been thoroughly mastered. Each time the specialist teacherintroduced a new word group to Owen, she used a multi-sensory approachto maximise his opportunities to grasp the information. She also madesure the spelling and meaning of each word were taught together. Toteach the word `kerb', for example she drew a diagram of a kerb onthe board; for `curve', she made a curved shape with her hand. Eachnew set of words was written onto small cards for Owen For Owen is a poem by Stephen King first published in the 1985 short story and poetry collection Skeleton Crew. The thirty-four line free verse poem consists of eleven unrhymed, unmetered verse paragraphs. to take home andlearn. The teacher was confident this would be done because his mothermonitored and assisted with his learning support homework. Owen was clearly very used to the format of the learning supportsessions and moved easily from one activity to another. He had learnedmany different strategies for recognising, remembering and reproducingwords. An important aspect of his program was reinforcing learntstrategies and encouraging independence. The specialist teacher stressedthe cognitive processes Cognitive processesThought processes (i.e., reasoning, perception, judgment, memory).Mentioned in: Psychosocial Disorders involved in retrieving knowledge of spellings.For instance, when Owen incorrectly wrote `becos' she said: Owen, don't expect some magic to make your hand write the correct spelling. You must think first. In your head say B-E-C-A-U-S-E. At least until you're 21. Later that session, Owen wrote `because' correctly withoutprompting. This time the teacher stressed the importance of making acognitive/ physical connection: Teacher: When you write that in the classroom, Owen, what must youdo? Owen: Say it? Teacher: Write it in your head. Tell your hand how to write it. This air of good-natured challenge was typical of the way thespecialist teacher interacted with Owen, particularly when she judged hewas becoming passive. Owen was continually reminded that working withhis specific difficulties required effort and focus. Her prompts alsoencouraged him to imagine himself in situations where he needed to actindependently. This supported the transfer of skills from the withdrawalsituation to the classroom context. Towards the end of Year 6 Owen had just read his first novel andhis confidence and presentation of work was much improved. Owen's mother was aware of the amount of support he had neededat home to cope with primary school homework and dreaded dread?v. dread��ed, dread��ing, dreadsv.tr.1. To be in terror of.2. To anticipate with alarm, distaste, or reluctance: dreaded the long drive home. having toassist him with high school assignments. She was pessimistic pes��si��mism?n.1. A tendency to stress the negative or unfavorable or to take the gloomiest possible view: "We have seen too much defeatism, too much pessimism, too much of a negative approach"aboutOwen's educational and employment future, going so far as to saythat she didn't `see much future for him', meaning that Owenmost likely would not be able to go to university and have aprofessional career. The specialist teacher was more hopeful, expressingthe view that he would find a `niche' in an area of strength. James, Year 6 (Rivalland & Brown 2000) James was an Indigenous student who had moved around a great deal.He had previously lived with his father, but at the time of the studywas living with an aunt, who had recently become his legal guardian.This had meant moving to a new school towards which initially he hadheld a negative attitude and was described as a `refuser'. In theyear prior to the study, his attendance at his previous school was only30 days. There was some concern that he could become violent when askedto undertake his schoolwork, particularly when faced with difficult ornew tasks. For this reason the teachers did not push him to participate,actively avoiding confrontation. The classroom teacher explained thatshe had found ways of getting him to do some tasks at a different timefrom the other students, which avoided `shaming' James in front ofothers. James' aunt, a young, capable and confident woman, had otherchildren of her own at the school; one of them was in James' class.This aunt provided firm discipline, liaised frequently with the school,was very supportive of the school's programs and had a goodrelationship with the Indigenous Education Worker. Being in the sameclass as his conscientious con��sci��en��tious?adj.1. Guided by or in accordance with the dictates of conscience; principled: a conscientious decision to speak out about injustice.2. female cousin was important for James as shehelped him become better organised and provided him with friendship,family support and a positive classroom role model. James' aunt felt that his reading and writing problems werecaused by his parents' separation and reported that when Jamesfirst came to live with her family, he was painfully shy and didn'tlike to read aloud. However, with a stable home life, the school'sintervention programs and the support of his classroom teacher, Jameshad made a lot of progress. Although he was still shy, he would read tohis aunt and uncle. His aunt said that attending the homework classeswith her daughter had been very helpful for James. The school staff were proud of the achievements James had made. Ata whole school level it was decided to address James'ssocialisation problems first. Accordingly his teacher had implemented abehaviour modification program, which appeared to be effective ineliminating inappropriate behaviour. James took part in a special withdrawal program for children inYears 4 to 7, which included a focus on phonic phon��icadj.Of, relating to, or having the nature of sound, especially speech sounds.phonicpertaining to the voice. patterns and wasconducted at a rapid pace, allowing no time for children to be off-task.It was strongly goal-directed and included instruction in comprehension,metacognitive strategies, vocabulary development and reading aloud. Inone observed withdrawal lesson the instructions for the comprehensionactivities were written on the blackboard (1) See Blackboard Learning System.(2) The traditional classroom presentation board that is written on with chalk and erased with a felt pad. Although originally black, "white" boards and colored chalks are also used. before the lesson began. Thestudents were allowed to use pencil to `underline underlinean animal's ventral profile; the shape of the belly when viewed from the side, e.g. pendulous, pot-belly, tucked up, gaunt. the part where theanswer to the comprehension question is,' on old reading books. Thewithdrawal teacher called this the `Get ready' strategy ('Getready to write answers for the comprehension questions'). Thestudents then wrote a full sentence answer in their workbooks bycombining the relevant part of the question with the underlined partfrom the text. The withdrawal teacher explained how she prepared a beginningvocabulary list with James before starting him on a reading program. Shedrew on the Salisbury and Dolch word lists and taught him the vocabularyfrom the first book she had selected for him. Only when he knew 90 percent of the words was he given the book to read. The immediate successhe experienced in `being able to read' had a profound effect onJames. In the regular class a multi-tasking strategy was observed. Theclass was divided into three groups, the teacher working with the lowestability group, which included James. All groups read the same text, butthe activities were slightly different for each group. James'sgroup had a modified comprehension task appropriate to their level. Abrief, explicit modelling of how to answer the comprehension questionswas provided as the classroom teacher reinforced a version of thewithdrawal teacher's `Get ready' strategy. James' attendance in the homework classes had been highlybeneficial. The homework class tutor liaised with the withdrawal teacherand the classroom teachers so that they were all teaching andreinforcing the same concepts and strategies. The stable home life andpositive role model of his cousin had also been critical in James'simprovement. The teachers did not feel James had a learning difficultyas such, rather he suffered from a lack of teaching largely caused bynon-attendance at school and earlier family problems. Cathy, Year 5 (Smith 2001) Cathy lived with her parents in a remote area of Australia, near anold salt mine at which both her parents worked. Three older siblings siblingsnpl (formal) → fr��res et s?urs mpl (de m��mes parents)lived away from home. When her parents moved to their present address inthe year before the study began, they enrolled Cathy as a distanceeducation student in a School of the Air. Accordingly, Cathy did notattend school in the same way as most other Australian children. Herclassroom was a converted bedroom in her home, and from a distance herteacher managed a class of between eight and ten students and wasresponsible for the delivery of a daily half-hour class lesson by radio.Where necessary, further communication between the teacher and Cathy andher family was conducted through phone or email, a minimum of three homevisits to each student every year, and further contact through camps andseminars held at the School of the Air site in a regional town. The main responsibility for delivering Cathy's educationalprogram, which was supplied by distance education curriculum developmentdesigners, fell to her home tutor, who in this case was Cathy'smother. The home tutor plays a critical role in the education of Schoolof the Air students, by supervising their work. Cathy's mother wassupported in this by the School of the Air teacher, principal and aSupport Officer Learning Difficulties. Assessment by the Support Officer Learning Difficulties and herteacher showed that Cathy had some difficulties in readingcomprehension, spelling and writing. Her reading rate and accuracy wereappropriate for her age level. A highly structured Individual EducationProgram (IEP IEPIn currencies, this is the abbreviation for the Irish Punt.Notes:The currency market, also known as the Foreign Exchange market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average volume of over US $1 trillion. ) was developed for Cathy that involved the use ofmotivation, a daily timetable and a list of set activities for each day. As the Support Officer Learning Difficulties and her teachermonitored Cathy's individual program it became evident that shefaced many difficulties related to the distance education mode oflearning. Her mother found it particularly difficult to take on the roleof home tutor, as she participated in paid work outside the home. As aresult Cathy was frequently required to work without supervision. Thislack of supervision exacerbated her existing literacy difficulties, asher capacity to organise her own learning was haphazard hap��haz��ard?adj.Dependent upon or characterized by mere chance. See Synonyms at chance.n.Mere chance; fortuity.adv.By chance; casually. . The Support Officer Learning Difficulties and her teacher thereforeset up a timetable that required Cathy to phone the teacher each day toconfirm the work carried out and to identify areas where she neededfurther help. Over a period of time Cathy's inability to organise her workresulted in very little set work being completed and tension developingin the relationship between Cathy and her mother. This situation wascompounded each day that Cathy worked alone. Her mother felt that Cathyshould have been able to complete the work set in the IEP, but the factthat she chose not to was seen as an attempt to seek her mother'sattention. When her mother was able to work with Cathy she often foundit difficult to support her: I have to go out of the room. I know she can do what's in front of her and I get frustrated because she tries to say she can't do it and I know she can. That's when I walk out of the room before I start screaming at her. She will not work things out for herself. She knows it but she'll just try me in certain areas for the reaction. On the other hand, Cathy's mother had experienced somepositive experiences as home tutor: She's done some beautiful work and seeing the expression on her face when she knows she's done really well. She loves being on the radio because she loves getting that input from her teacher and it's just a totally different environment for her because she's got one on one. And hearing the other kids at the same time has been great. It is difficult to ascertain whether or not Cathy had a learningdifficulty or if the distance education mode of working alone, withmostly written texts, did not suit her way of learning. Cathy'slack of motivation and refusal to complete assigned tasks may have beenthe result of lack of supervision, inappropriateness of the learningmode, an inability to control her own learning or, most likely, acombination of all these factors. Yung, Year 3 (Rivalland & Huber 2000) When Yung's family had arrived in Australia as `boatpeople' from a refugee camp in a war-torn Asian country Noun 1. Asian country - any one of the nations occupying the Asian continentAsian nationcountry, land, state - the territory occupied by a nation; "he returned to the land of his birth"; "he visited several European countries" , he and hisfamily spent several months in a migrant mi��grant?n.1. One that moves from one region to another by chance, instinct, or plan.2. An itinerant worker who travels from one area to another in search of work.adj.Migratory. detention centre detention centreNouna place where young people may be detained for short periods of time by order of a courtNoun 1. detention centre . Neither ofhis parents spoke any English and they were literate in neither Englishnor their first language. Yung was attending a mainstream school with aCentre for English as a Second Language (ESL (1) An earlier family of client/server development tools for Windows and OS/2 from Ardent Software (formerly VMARK). It was originally developed by Easel Corporation, which was acquired by VMARK. ) students attached. He hadspent the first two years of school in the English Language English language,member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. Centre and,at the time of the study, in Year 3, was in a mainstream class. Yung's teachers found it difficult to ascertain whether hisliteracy difficulties were due to limited English proficiency pro��fi��cien��cy?n. pl. pro��fi��cien��ciesThe state or quality of being proficient; competence.Noun 1. proficiency - the quality of having great facility and competence or to alearning difficulty/disability. His teachers had sought help from arange of agencies, but had been unable to find anyone who could clarifythis issue. They felt that possibly the two difficulties had beencompounded through language loss experienced by Yung in the refugeecamp. The teachers also felt his slow development in English might havebeen related to the oral tradition of his family. While the schoolregularly used teacher assistants to translate notes, letters andinterviews for parents, in Yung's case the language barrier wasdifficult for the school to manage. A child who sat opposite Yung spoke the same dialect as he and washelping him with his classwork by translating what the teacher said intohis first language. He and two other children were being withdrawn bythe ESL teacher for three half-hour sessions every week. During thistime the ESL teacher implemented teaching strategies related todecoding de��code?tr.v. de��cod��ed, de��cod��ing, de��codes1. To convert from code into plain text.2. To convert from a scrambled electronic signal into an interpretable one.3. , oral language, sentence structures and comprehension. SinceYung was having trouble decoding text, the focus in these lessons was ondecoding and discussing whole texts. One purpose of the oral languagecomponent of the lesson was to provide scaffolded opportunities for himto answer comprehension questions using appropriate English languagestructures. Yung did not appear to understand the skills required to become aneffective literacy user. He readily identified a girl whom he thoughtwas good at reading and writing because she got `lots of praise from theteacher'. He indicated that he saw himself as neither a good readernor writer because he received little praise for his work. His lack ofself-confidence and the limited support his parents were able to provideappeared to construct his view of effective literacy as being synonymouswith synonymous withadjective equivalent to, the same as, identical to, similar to, identified with, equal to, tantamount to, interchangeable with, one and the same as praise. During an interview for the study his mother spoke through aninterpreter A high-level programming language translator that translates and runs the program at the same time. It translates one program statement into machine language, executes it, and then proceeds to the next statement. . She was reported as saying that while she knew Yung'sknowledge and skills in English were improving, she did not know whatthe school was doing to help her son. She indicated that she was pleasedwith his progress at school and whilst he had previously been havingdifficulties learning at school, she now felt he was able to cope muchbetter. Also, for three or four months prior to the research, she hadtaken up an offer by a church organisation for Yung to receive help athome. She felt this had helped him make progress with his English. However, Yung's English was developing very slowly. He knewfew words and read little. In an interview he indicated that hispreferred books were non-fiction and `about dinosaurs'. He alsoexplained that he enjoyed learning about preparing food, which wasdemonstrated during the school's `healthy food day', and heresponded well to the science report genre. He liked writing the wordshe knew and doing illustrations for his stories. To help with hisreading and writing Yung used word lists around the room, a classroomdictionary and his `have-a-go pad' on which he attempted to spellthe words he wanted to use in his writing and then checked with histeacher whether his attempt was correct. When reading, if he did notknow a word he moved onto the next to see if that would help him work itout. He attempted sounding out words, but frequently needed prompts todo so. It was observed that spelling was difficult for him and whenreading became difficult he simply stopped trying to decode (1) To convert coded data back into its original form. Contrast with encode.(2) Same as decrypt. See cryptography. (cryptography) decode - To apply decryption. words atall. As Yung's progress appeared to be very slow it was difficultfor his teachers to determine whether his learning of English as asecond language was the primary source of his difficulties or whether hedid in fact have a learning disability. Nevertheless, they felt thestrategies being used were appropriate and, that if they persevered,development would proceed, even though it might not be at the same rateas that expected of other ESL students. Riston, Year 1 (Greaves greavescracklings, an edible raw fat from the meat trade. The skimmings from the preparation of this fat are also called greaves. They represent a low grade of meat meal. 2000) Riston's Year 1 literacy class was organised according to theCLASS principles developed and researched collaboratively by theCatholic Education Office in Victoria and the University of Melbourne AsiaWeek is now discontinued. Comments:In 2006, Times Higher Education Supplement ranked the University of Melbourne 22nd in the world. Because of the drop in ranking, University of Melbourne is currently behind four Asian universities - Beijing University, (see Hill & Crevola 1999). This literacy project is based onresearch findings on effective teaching and involves a two-hour literacyblock, whole school partnerships, intervention assistance and wholeschool commitment. Riston said he found reading difficult, as it was `hard to soundthe words out'. Educational and cognitive assessments showed him tobe of average ability, but with comparatively poorer verbal abilities.He had been referred to a large children's hospital A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties. fordisobedience DisobedienceDisorder (See CONFUSION.)Achandefies God’s ban on taking booty. [O.T.: Joshua 7:1]Adam and Eveeat forbidden fruit of Tree of Knowledge. [O.T.: Genesis 3:1–7; Br. Lit. and aggressive and disruptive behaviour, as well as poorlearning in class. There he was diagnosed as `ADHD Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)DefinitionAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder characterized by distractibility, hyperactivity, impulsive behaviors, and the inability to remain focused on tasks or with oppositionaldefiance Defiance,city (1990 pop. 16,768), seat of Defiance co., NW Ohio, at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee rivers, in a farm area; settled 1790, inc. 1836. Its manufactures include machinery and food, fabricated-metal, and glass products. Gen. disorder' and had been given a trial[ on dexamphetamine.He had also seen other specialists from the Catholic Education Officeand his parents had been invited to attend parent training sessions. Hehad undergone cognitive assessments and speech assessment with a speechpathologist from the Catholic Education Office. Riston's teacher planned his program on the results ofschool-based assessments that included the Observation Survey of EarlyLiteracy Achievement (Clay 1985) and the Burt Word Test. She decidedthat he needed practice with his oral language and to concentrate on theorthography of words. She knew when he had taken his daily dose ofdexamphetamine as there were quite distinct differences in hisbehaviours between the times when he was medicated medicated/med��i��cat��ed/ (med��i-kat?id) imbued with a medicinal substance. medicatedcontains a medicinal substance. and when he was not.Without medication he could not control his body movements. He would berestless restless,adj in Chinese medicine, pertaining to either an abundance of heat energy, in conjunction with redness of face or to overstimulation in which case the face will be pale or greenish. and continually moving about. He found this constant movementfrustrating frus��trate?tr.v. frus��trat��ed, frus��trat��ing, frus��trates1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: and became quite irritable irritable/ir��ri��ta��ble/ (ir��i-tah-b'l)1. capable of reacting to a stimulus.2. abnormally sensitive to stimuli.3. prone to excessive anger, annoyance, or impatience. . On days of no medication hetouched other children and appeared to have no ability to concentrate.His teacher was sensitive to his concentration difficulties andattempted to cater for his needs. Each day Riston took part in the two-hour uninterrupted classliteracy lesson that consisted of reading and writing activities. Histeacher said that to keep the attention of students she had a change ofactivity every 10 to 12 minutes. If he was having difficulty with a taskRiston would often ask the class assistant for help. In group sessionshe was required to sit on the floor at the teacher's feet. He wasin a small `instructional' level group for reading. When reading inthis group he was asked to touch the book with his finger to keep hisattention on the page. He was reminded to `practise prac��tise?v. & n. Chiefly BritishVariant of practice.practis��er n. with your eyes'when reading orally. The teacher was able to spend some one-to-one timewith Riston when the class was divided into ability groups in theirliteracy lesson. She had found that he learnt best when he was able tohave a physical representation of concepts, so she provided a range ofart materials Techniques and materials related to art:Traditional techniques: Acrylic paint Charcoal Clay Collage Drawing Fresco Glass Gouache Gum arabic Lithography Oil painting Oil pastel Paint Painting Pen and ink such as paint, crayons and pencils so that he could learnvisually and through touch. In addition to the two-hour daily literacylesson Riston attended four 30 minute Reading Recovery sessions eachweek. To assess the efficacy of the one-to-one teaching and the use ofconcrete materials, the teacher re-administered the Burt Word Test tocheck Riston's progress and regularly reviewed the daily runningrecords from his Reading Recovery program. Overall his teacher waspleased with his progress. His mother, who was a single parent, viewed Riston'smedication as essential to settle him down and make him concentrate inschool. She had noted a great improvement in his reading, which sheattributed to his Reading Recovery lessons and medication. At home, heread his home reading book and constructed a sentence from words writtenon cards. The two aspects of support that Riston's mother foundvaluable were that the school knew he had a problem and that the classteacher and the special needs teacher provided additional assistance. Andrew, Year 1 (Rohl 2000) Andrew had been in the Preprimary/Year 1 class of his rural schoolfor nearly two years. His mother reported that he was a `happy brightkid' who loved school and his teacher, and had been identified ashaving some speech and hearing problems before he started school. Sheexplained that he had been reluctant to read or write at the beginningof Year 1, would pick up a book to look at the pictures but was notinterested in the words and had a poor pencil grip. Andrew's teacher had specialist qualifications in working withchildren with difficulties/disabilities. In her class there were manyopportunities for children to read, write and comprehend connected text.There was also an emphasis on `auditory work', sight word andletter recognition which, as she pointed out, children `don't pickup by osmosis'. She used a mastery learning Mastery Learning is an instructional method that presumes all children can learn if they are provided with the appropriate learning conditions. Specifically, mastery learning is a method whereby students are not advanced to a subsequent learning objective until they demonstrate approach for thesebasic skills in which children were required to practise the skill everyday and demonstrate mastery on several occasions. Nevertheless, she madethis learning fun and interesting as the children sang `sillysongs', played whispering and teacher-made games, re-made sentencesfrom cut-up words or took part in Shared Book reading. Assessment to identify individual strengths and weaknesses was anintegral part of the program, with very specific screening tests forboth oral and written language. For oral language this involvedsegmenting sentences into words and words into phonemes and providingrhyming rhymealso rime ?n.1. Correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse.2. a. A poem or verse having a regular correspondence of sounds, especially at the ends of lines.b. words. This assessment informed the oral language program whichhad input from a speech pathologist and focussed on `metalinguistics(with an emphasis on phonological awareness Phonological awareness is the conscious sensitivity to the sound structure of language. It includes the ability to auditorily distinguish parts of speech, such as syllables and phonemes. ), narrative, comprehension,inquiry and vocabulary'. Andrew's teacher had introduced individual literacy contractsto the classroom. She reasoned that the contracts would individualise v. t. 1. Same as individualize.Verb 1. individualise - make or mark or treat as individual; "The sounds were individualized by sharpness and tone"individualize learning and take account of the different rates at which children learnand complete their work and eliminate wasted time for early finishers.Each child had to complete an individual contract every morning. TheYear 1 children were required to complete nine short tasks involvingwriting, spelling, phonics, copying from the board, word recognition anda variety of games/activities prepared by the teacher. The contracts forthe Preprimary pre��pri��mar��y?adj.Relating to or taking place in the time before a primary election: preprimary conventions.children contained only three tasks. Once the contractwas completed to a `good quality' standard the children wereallowed `free time' in which they could take part in various playand creative activities such as painting and block construction. Inaddition to contract work, the teacher implemented various whole groupactivities that featured reading and writing, usually with directteaching of skills and concepts. Children were heard readingindividually every day by parent volunteers, assistants or teachers andthere was a home reading program in which all parents were expected totake part. An important resource in the literacy program was the A3 size`mat' fixed to each child's table that contained an alphabetchart. There were boxes for the teacher to record two dates at which thechild demonstrated recognition of each letter and sound, hearing eachsingle sound at the beginning of a word, and writing each letter. On theback of their mats the Year 1 children had a list of common letterblends. In this way the teacher and child could see at a glance exactlywhat the child knew and needed to learn in these skill areas. `Focus groups' were set up for Year 1 children such as Andrewwho had been identified as experiencing difficulty. The program beganwith an emphasis on auditory skills, followed by instruction in letterrecognition, word recognition and spelling (lists of common words) andphonics (based on the specific letters and sounds not recognised fromthe letter mat). The focus groups were taught by the classroom teacher;a sessional teacher taught the rest of the class. Very detailed recordswere made each week of the children's achievements, which includeddated work samples in order to assess progress and indicate furtherneeds. Andrew's teacher described how he had initially experiencedgreat difficulty in copying words and would not try writing on his own.By the end of Year 1 his handwriting had `improved out of allrecognition', he was leaving spaces between words and writing short`stories'. He also demonstrated mastery of all alphabet letters,single sounds, 38 of the Salisbury `First Hundred Words' and someof the next list, whereas at the beginning of the year he had recognisedonly a handful of letters and few words. His teacher was pleased with Andrew's progress, attributingmuch of his success to the focus group instruction. Nevertheless, shestill saw `some gaps' in his knowledge and in his ability to copewith the structure of the classroom. He was observed to operateindependently in a small group of children on the one day of the weekwhen the Preprimary children did not attend school. He showed knowledgeof the classroom routines with, `I've got to write the date first.It's Naughty naugh��ty?adj. naugh��ti��er, naugh��ti��est1. Behaving disobediently or mischievously: a naughty child.2. Indecent; improper: a naughty wink. Nick [the Letterland character] today'. He waswell able to learn his spelling words for the day, saying, `I don'tneed to see it, you have to hide it and write it', and he couldtest his partner for spelling. Andrew's mother reported that, at the end of Year 1, he wasmore interested in literacy, would write, colour in, read some books,albeit reluctantly, and had a good pencil grip. He did his home readingto his older sister, not his parents. She felt he had made very goodprogress during the year and could do well when he `took the time'as he was `always in a rush.' His mother attributed Andrew'ssuccess to the weekly small group situations when the Preprimarychildren did not attend where he did `his best work ever' and tohis `great teacher who seems to know which direction he needs to go in... communicates with us ... picked the problem up early and addressedit in one-on-one work in the classroom'. Additionally Andrew's parents conducted a home speech programthat concentrated on phonological pho��nol��o��gy?n. pl. pho��nol��o��gies1. The study of speech sounds in language or a language with reference to their distribution and patterning and to tacit rules governing pronunciation.2. development. They realised that hestill had a few speech problems, but also saw that he was consciouslyaware of mispronunciations and able to employ fix-up strategies. Inorder to improve his handwriting skills he had also taken part in a finemotor program conducted by an occupational therapist at his school. Issues The six children we have introduced here were selected in order toprovide evidence about the many issues facing schools, teachers andparents as they endeavour to support children who are having difficultyin learning literacy. Contrary to countless reports in the media thereis no one literacy program or strategy that will be effective for allchildren with learning difficulties. When schools are making decisionsabout how they might best support these children a range of issues needsto be taken into account. The diversity of children identified There is evidence from these case studies that Australian schoolsare identifying a wide range of children as having difficulty inlearning literacy. The children identified included those whosedifficulties were most likely caused by, or concomitant concomitant/con��com��i��tant/ (kon-kom��i-tant) accompanying; accessory; joined with another. concomitantadjective Accompanying, accessory, joined with another with, a range ofconditions and circumstances. Yung and James came from linguistic andcultural backgrounds that could have influenced their difficulties.Riston had a behavioural condition that appeared to make literacylearning difficult. Andrew had difficulties that appeared to betransitory and he had responded well to highly structured teaching.Cathy's life circumstances had placed her in a situation where themode of learning may not have been suited to her needs. Owen had beendiagnosed with a specific learning disability that was long term, withthe assumption of intrinsic causes related to central nervous systemdysfunction dysfunction/dys��func��tion/ (dis-funk��shun) disturbance, impairment, or abnormality of functioning of an organ.dysfunc��tionalerectile dysfunction? impotence (2). (Hammill 1990). Nevertheless, what these children had incommon was that they were all experiencing difficulty in learningEnglish literacy, whatever the cause. The fragility of learning From our observations and discussions with students, parents andteachers, we found that school life was often arduous ar��du��ous?adj.1. Demanding great effort or labor; difficult: "the arduous work of preparing a Dictionary of the English Language"Thomas Macaulay.2. for thesechildren. Cathy, for example found it very difficult to work alone, withlittle supervision of her work that was mostly in a written mode. Yungand James found that they had to work much harder than their normallyachieving class-mates because they were not able to take with them toschool those literacy practices valued by schools. Furthermore, theywere both in family circumstances where their parents were not able toprovide the intensive support given by the families of Owen and Andrew.Yung, Cathy and James had all been affected by family mobility, whichhad disrupted their learning. Even in the case of Andrew, who appearedto have made very good progress in a class where he had outstandingsupport, it is difficult to make predictions about his progress as hemoves into different learning situations with different teachers. Identification and assessment It was apparent in the cases of Riston, Andrew and Owen that earlyidentification, diagnosis and the opportunity to access specialistservices had facilitated the planning of appropriate support programs.All three children were fortunate to live in families where theirparents had the capacity to seek out and take advantage of the supportservices support servicesPsychology Non-health care-related ancillary services–eg, transportation, financial aid, support groups, homemaker services, respite services, and other services available. Where children were not able to access specialistdiagnoses, it was often difficult for teachers to ascertain the natureof the difficulty. It was difficult for Yung's teachers to know ifhis difficulties related to his linguistic background, cognitiveability, a learning disability or a combination of these factors.Similarly, in Cathy's case it was difficult to know whether herpoor comprehension was related to a learning disability, her lifecircumstances or the distance education mode of learning. Snow, Burns and Griffin (1998) have highlighted the importance ofearly identification. They point out how important it is that childrenbe assessed as early as possible in order to identify the primary locusof their difficulty so that other professionals can be contacted ifnecessary and teaching focussed on children's individual needs. Itwas noted that Andrew, like many other students of all ages who wereidentified in the Mapping the Territory study, had experienced earlyspeech and language problems, accompanied by a history of ear infectionsand concomitant short-term hearing loss. Speech, language and hearingproblems appeared to be particularly prevalent in the early years ofschool. Snow, Burns and Griffin have identified speech and hearingproblems in the early years as predisposing factors for readingdifficulties. Early years programs The schools provided a variety of programs to meet the needs of thestudents with learning difficulties. It has been shown that good earlyyears teaching has the potential to prevent long term literacydifficulties for many children (Snow, Burns & Griffin 1998).Andrew's school provided a whole school commitment to effectiveclassroom teaching in the early years. This was achieved through theflexible use of school staff in order to provide a variety of wholegroup, small group and individual literacy experiences and includedsystematic practice, explicit instruction in code-breaking, a strongemphasis on oral language, frequent practice in reading aloud,comprehension of text, games, motivating activities and systematicregular assessment of taught skills. The oral language component, whichhad input from a speech pathologist, included phonological awareness,vocabulary building and listening, speaking and thinking skills. Riston was also involved in a structured early literacy program,which involved a daily two-hour literacy lesson that focussed on bothskills and work with connected text. Within the classroom programRiston's program included multi-sensory learning strategies and thefacilitation FacilitationThe process of providing a market for a security. Normally, this refers to bids and offers made for large blocks of securities, such as those traded by institutions. of on-task behaviour by frequent change of activities. Theaddition of creative resources, and in the case of Andrew the use ofplay activities, seemed to be particularly important for these highlyactive children. The whole school plan at Riston's schoolincorporated provision for him to take part in the one-to-one ReadingRecovery program. Crevola and Hill (1998) have reported effectiveoutcomes from the Reading Recovery program when embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. in a wholeschool program. Another whole school feature of Riston's programwas the close liaison between the classroom teacher, the ReadingRecovery teacher and the school literacy coordinator. Ongoing support Yung, Cathy, James and Owen were in the middle or upper primaryyears. All, except for Cathy, had been given significant additionalsupport in their early school years. In spite of this, these childrenwere still in need of special support programs designed to meet theirindividual literacy needs. Yung had taken part in intensive Englishclasses for his first two years at school. Now in Year 3, he wasprovided with an individual program that focussed on oral language,decoding, sentence structures and scaffolded opportunities to answercomprehension questions. His class teacher also concentrated on buildinghis self-confidence. Cathy was provided with an IEP by the SupportOfficer Learning Difficulties, which focussed on scaffolding herlearning in order to enable her to complete set tasks. Both James and Owen were preparing to move to secondary school.James' modified program included a withdrawal session each day,during which the focus was comprehension, vocabulary development andreading aloud. There was a strong emphasis on goal setting andconfidence building. The classroom teacher supported these strategiesand, through a small group, was able to reinforce the withdrawalteacher's strategies. Extra support was provided through homeworkclasses in which the Indigenous Education Worker liaised with both thewithdrawal and classroom teachers to reinforce concepts and strategies.James' future progress was likely to be contingent upon Adj. 1. contingent upon - determined by conditions or circumstances that follow; "arms sales contingent on the approval of congress"contingent on, dependant on, dependant upon, dependent on, dependent upon, depending on, contingent continuedsupport for his literacy learning. Since Year 3 Owen had been in a specialist program for studentswith specific learning disabilities, and before that time his parentshad provided him with specialist tutoring services. His highlystructured classroom program had a strong emphasis on specific skills,such as spelling and auditory processing activities. There was a strongemphasis on metacognitive strategies for recognising, remembering andreproducing words. The program was taught using integrated units of workand was planned to enhance confidence building and presentation of work.Despite his specific learning disability, at the end of Year 6, withyears of support provided by the school and his mother, Owen'sgreat achievement was the reading of his first novel. Variety of programs The programs provided by schools for the six children were verydifferent in terms of knowledge and skills taught, as well as timeallocated and modes of delivery. As various researchers have pointed out(Coles 1998; Duffy & Hoffman 1999), there is no one best method thatis effective for all children and teaching needs to be differentiatedfor individual learners (Juel & Minden-Cupp 2000). Nevertheless,there were some common features in the programs created for the sixchildren. All the schools that the children attended had taken some formof a whole school approach to providing for students with learningdifficulties. As a result, a specialist teacher had allocated additionalinstructional time to all children, in an individual or small groupwithdrawal setting. Cathy, because of her geographical isolation Geographic isolation, or allopatry, is a term used in the study of evolution. When part of a population of a species becomes geographically isolated from the remainder, it may over time evolve characteristics different from the parent population (due to natural selection). , was ineffect in a withdrawal situation. All programs had a strong emphasis onthe specific aspects of literacy that the children needed to learn, butalso attempted to motivate the students and raise their levels ofconfidence as learners. Further, there was a concerted attempt tointegrate the classroom and withdrawal programs; in Andrew's caseit was the classroom teacher who conducted the withdrawal focus group,so that in effect the other children in the class were withdrawn. Whatwas also apparent was the enthusiasm and commitment on the part of bothclassroom and specialist teachers to improve literacy outcomes for thesechildren. Home-school communication and parental involvement wereencouraged in all programs, although Cathy's and Yung'sparents were not able to take part in these to any great extent, andJames' aunt was taking on the role of parent in liaising closelywith the school and helping with homework. (Nichols and Read, thisvolume, examine the issue of home-school communication in detail.) Conclusions At the beginning of this article we pointed out that the issue ofdefinition of learning difficulties is contentious because there is nocommonly accepted definition of learning difficulty/disability withinthe Australian context. Our analysis of the six children's literacydifficulties and home and school circumstances reinforces the complexityof identifying needs and effectively supporting learning for childrenwho have difficulty in learning literacy. Nevertheless, it seems to usthat the following conclusions may be drawn from this analysis. It is apparent from these reported case studies that earlyidentification and intervention programs can support literacydevelopment. La Paro and Pianta (2000) have shown that only a relativelysmall amount of the variance in early school achievement is accountedfor by pre-existing child factors, so that early intervention by schoolshas the potential to prevent many literacy learning difficulties. Whenassessment and intervention are systematic and implemented by highlyskilled teachers in individual or small group settings there seem to beparticularly effective outcomes (Clay 1985, Snow, Burns & Griffin1998). Further, when early years programs include specific instructionin word level skills, literacy learning is enhanced (Tunmer, Chapman& Prochnow in press). The findings are in accordance with the conclusions of Luke (1994)and Hill, Comber comb��er?n.1. One, such as a machine or a worker, that combs something, such as wool.2. A long wave that has reached its peak or broken into foam; a breaker. , Louden, Rivalland and Reid (1998) that the linguisticand cultural resources children bring to school differentially influencehow they are able to take up what is on offer in school literacy.Nevertheless, it is important that teachers hold high expectations forthese children. Au (2000) maintains that `there should not be adifferent set of standards for students of diverse backgrounds, butthere should be a recognition that these students may require morepowerful instruction and additional time to reach standards' (p.884). Classroom instruction therefore needs to be differentiated to meetthe needs of all students (Juel & Minden-Cupp 2000). Andrew'sdaily literacy contract was one means of differentiating his program. Not only did some children bring to the school context differentlinguistic and cultural resources, but also some parents did not appearto not have the personal, economic, cultural or linguistic resourceswith which to access specialist services and help their children achieveexpected literacy outcomes. It is important that schools and systemsrecognise the difficulties that some parents have and find alternativemeans for them to access services and receive additional support. Changes to Cathy's schooling and non-attendance at school byJames were associated with their literacy difficulties. Gray and Hunter(2000) and Louden and Hunter (1999) have shown that these variables havestrong potential for affecting children's literacy learning.Schools and systems need effective processes for tracking children whomove from school to school and to find ways of encouraging schoolattendance that are appropriate for different community groups. Even when early intervention and highly skilled specialist teachingis available some children will need on-going support throughout theirschooling. Allington (2002) has reported on the lack of research intoschool programs that provide long-term support for children withlearning difficulties/disabilities. He has also commented that typicallyschools plan their budgets on a short-term basis, with the result thatsupport for students may be sporadic sporadic/spo��rad��ic/ (spo-rad��ic) occurring singly; widely scattered; not epidemic or endemic. spo��rad��icor spo��rad��i��caladj.1. Occurring at irregular intervals.2. and not long-term or continuing.Whilst the schools of the six children selected for this study were allsupporting students with learning difficulties in some way throughoutthe primary years, most resources were directed to the early years ofschool. (An exception was Owen's independent school that was ableto provide intensive and cohesive cohesive,n the capability to cohere or stick together to form a mass. specialist support from Year 3onwards on��ward?adj.Moving or tending forward.adv. also on��wardsIn a direction or toward a position that is ahead in space or time; forward.Adv. 1. .) Whole school long-term planning is critical to ensuresystematic and appropriate provision that supports children withlearning difficulties throughout their school lives. High quality teaching is most important in children's literacylearning. Darling-Hammond (2000) has described how a growing body ofresearch shows that a substantial proportion of school effectivenessdata can be attributed to teachers and that teacher effects arecumulative. Similarly, Hill and Rowe (1998) point to the importance ofthe teacher when they suggest that it is `the identity of the class towhich the student belongs that is the key determinant determinant,a polynomial expression that is inherent in the entries of a square matrix. The size n of the square matrix, as determined from the number of entries in any row or column, is called the order of the determinant. of progress madeby the student' (p. 325). From our reports of the six children withliteracy learning difficulties it seems that it is not only classroomteachers but also specialist teachers, who liaise closely with classroomteachers, who have a profound effect on literacy learning outcomes. Investment in professional development and the raising of teacherqualifications is an important means of ensuring high quality teaching(Ferguson 1991). Andrew's classroom teacher was highly qualified inthe area of learning difficulties and as a result was able to providehigh quality classroom and focus group teaching in the early years ofschool. Similarly, Owen's specialist teacher had intensive trainingto work with students with specific learning difficulties/dyslexia andwas able to cater for his particular needs. Nevertheless, a survey ofschool principals for the Mapping the Territory study (Rohl & Milton2002) indicated that many schools did not have access to teachers withspecialist training and the case studies showed that middle and upperprimary teachers were particularly unsure of how to deal with studentswith learning difficulties. It seems to be of the utmost importance thatthere is investment in long-term professional development for teachersworking with students who have learning difficulties. In summary, success in teaching these children depends on theknowledge and capacity of teachers to find methods and strategies thateffectively differentiate instruction for children who may be identifiedas having learning difficulties. It is individual classroom teachers whohave the potential to make a real difference to children's learningand, as we have shown, their capacity to work co-operatively withparents and a variety of specialist personnel is of the utmostimportance. These teachers, however, are often operating in less thanideal environments and with limited resources. It is most important thatgovernments, systems and sectors provide funding and opportunities forprofessional development for teachers and adequate resources so thateffective support can be directed to the specific literacy needs ofindividual children. (1.) This project was funded under the Literacy and NumeracyProgramme administered by the Commonwealth Department of Education,Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA). The views expressed herein do notnecessarily represent the views of the Department. (2.) This project was funded jointly by all Edith Cowan Edith Dircksey Cowan (n��e Brown), OBE (August 2 1861–June 9 1932) was an Australian politician, social campaigner and the first woman elected as a representative in an Australian parliament. UniversityInstitute for the Service Professions Industry Collaboration Grant andthe Centre for Inclusive Schooling, Department of Education (WA). 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Mary Rohl and Judith Rivalland EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY Judith Rivalland is an Associate Professor at Edith CowanUniversity, where she is Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning andProgram Director of the Kindergarten kindergarten[Ger.,=garden of children], system of preschool education. Friedrich Froebel designed (1837) the kindergarten to provide an educational situation less formal than that of the elementary school but one in which children's creative play instincts would be through Primary Teacher EducationCourse. Her special interests are in the areas of literacy development,the effective teaching of early and primary years literacy and literacydifficulties. Over the past seven years Judith, Mary Rohl and other ECU ECUSee: European Currency UnitECUSee European Currency Unit (ECU). researchers have worked on eight DEST-funded national literacy researchprojects. Address: School of Education, Edith Cowan University, JoondalupDrive, Joondalup WA 6027 Email: j.rivalland@ecu.edu.au Mary Rohl is a Senior Lecturer senior lecturern. Chiefly BritishA university teacher, especially one ranking next below a reader. and Coordinator of the GraduateCertificate in Learning Difficulties at Edith Cowan University, whereshe is Co-Director of the Centre for Applied Language and LiteracyResearch. Her particular interests are in early literacy and literacylearning. difficulties, including teacher education in these areas. Address: School of Education, Edith Cowan University, PearsonStreet, Churchlands WA 6018 Email: m.rohl@ecu.edu.au