Australia's willfull ignorance about poor literacy, and finally some efforts to change it

Fantastic to see “whole language” literacy finally being dropped, 30 years after we had compelling evidence that it impairs learning and particularly harms people with specific learning disabilities.

The structured literacy system teaches sounds from the “bottom up,” as opposed to the “whole language” approach which relies on immersing children in language and counting on them to absorb it. Structured language includes phonics: the matching sounds with letters or groups of letters.

Morris Goss learnt to read in his 40s. Advocates hope a ‘structured literacy’ teaching approach will help others - ABC News

Ben Harris-Roxas @ben_hr