We embarked on a whole school approach to increase the reading achievement of students at Hackham East in Term 1, 2013.

Data from internal testing (e.g. PM Reading level benchmarks, TORCH-Reading Comprehension) as well as NAPLAN and teacher observations showed that students required explicit teaching in:

. specific comprehension skills (ie inferring, visualizing, summarizing);

. selecting appropriate reading material;

. developing reading stamina

Sally Slattery (Deputy Principal) led the team of Bob Thiele (Principal), Jonathon Kaesler (Librarian) and myself (Reading Support Teacher) to talk about our vision for developing lifelong readers at our site through programmed weekly meetings in Term 1. Questions such as the ones below were deeply considered, discussed and debated:

. What did we as a school community need to do to improve reading?

. How could we as literacy leaders empower teachers by building their knowledge about their students and about reading instruction?

. How could we shift the focus from measuring reading achievement from test results and attainment of reading levels to other means that would show students the reading behaviours they exhibit and guide them in how to develop certain skills they needed in order to become a proficient reader?

We looked at the big picture through the lens of a “Lotus Diagram” that Sally had been a part of developing across schools in the western suburbs of Melbourne. We met with the Literacy committee (consisting of 5 teachers across Reception- Year 7) to share the Lotus Diagram and to discuss and refine our vision before we took it to the whole staff.

Below is a quick snapshot of what has happened in literacy at my site, Hackham East Primary School, over the past 2 years.

In 2011-12, Reception to Year 3 teachers trained in Jolly Phonics and were using this synthetic phonics and grammar program, some were incorporating the Guided Reading approach in their Literacy sessions as well. Year 4-7 classes were looking into Book Clubs or using the Guided Reading approach or trying to make sense as to how the TORCH Reading Comprehension test results or other data could direct their teaching.

Students measured themselves as a reader by what reading level they were on, not on what they could already do and what their next learning steps would be to further develop their reading.

In 2011, our school set up a literacy intervention program for students not meeting reading benchmarks using the WAVE Intervention framework. These students worked in small groups (WAVE 2) or individually (WAVE 3) with an SSO on sight word vocabulary, specific phonemic needs, oral reading and comprehension. This is continuing with nearly 20% of students now accessing Multilit and Minilit as these programs have proven to be effective in raising the reading achievement of students with low literacy levels.