In every classroom, there’s a balancing act between giving all students a voice and maintaining the flow of a lesson. One powerful strategy for ensuring widespread engagement is cold calling, where the teacher selects students to respond without relying on volunteers. But despite its effectiveness, the term can feel, well, cold. That’s why it’s crucial to explore how cold calling can be used with warmth, intention, and careful attention to student needs.

What is Cold Calling?
Cold calling is a technique where teachers select students to answer questions or contribute to discussions without asking for volunteers. That’s right: it removes the need for students to raise their hands. This breaks the pattern of relying on the same few students and makes participation a shared responsibility.

The key purpose?

To keep all students thinking, listening, and ready to contribute because any one of them might be called on.
But if not used thoughtfully, cold calling can cause anxiety or disengagement. That’s why implementation matters just as much as the idea itself.

Cold Calling with Warmth
Here’s how to take the “cold” out of cold calling:
1. Teach first
One of the most effective ways to take the “cold” out of cold calling is to teach first. When we ensure that students have had clear instruction, time to process, and maybe even a chance to rehearse their thinking with a partner, cold calling no longer feels like being put on the spot; it feels like being invited to contribute. We’re not asking students to guess or take a wild stab in the dark; we’re asking them to share something they’ve already started building understanding around. When we teach first, cold calling becomes a natural extension of learning, not a pop quiz in disguise.
2. Normalise Participation
From the first week of school, I let students know that I’ll be inviting and expecting everyone to contribute: not to catch them out, but because I care about them and their thinking matters. I am always careful to emphasise that making mistakes is a part of learning.
When a student says, “But I didn’t have my hand up!” I gently respond, “That’s okay, I still care about what you think.” It’s a small moment, but a powerful reminder that their voice matters, even when they weren’t expecting to share.
3. Use Warm Language and Tone
Cold calling is not about catching students off guard or making them feel exposed—it’s about showing that their thinking matters. I avoid abrupt or evaluative language and instead frame my questions with curiosity and encouragement:
“I’d love to hear your take on this, Bec.”
“Hmm, Jackson, what do you reckon?”
“Let’s go to Tahlia—how are you thinking about this one?”
The tone we use communicates intent. When we ask with warmth and genuine interest, students are more likely to feel safe, valued, and willing to take risks. The way we ask matters just as much as who we ask.

Seem Random, Be Intentional
It’s tempting to make cold calling appear random by using popsicle sticks, name wheels, or digital randomisers. This can be useful early on, but the most effective teachers use strategic selection disguised as spontaneity.
Why? Because not all questions are created equal.

• Some require a confident modelled response → so I pick a student I know is ready.
• Others need a misconception surfaced → I pick a student who might be grappling with it.
• Some call for equity of voice → I bring in quieter students when I know they’ve got a response we can all learn from.

While tools like popsicle sticks or random name generators can appear to make cold calling fair, they often turn the process into a kind of performance; a ritual that looks equitable but actually removes intentionality. Relying on randomisers robs us of the chance to carefully select whose thinking we want to highlight and why. Sometimes we need a strong model, a common misconception, or a confidence boost for a quiet student—and a popsicle stick can’t make that call. Plus, if students see their name pulled and not returned to the jar, they quickly realise they’re “off the hook”, which undermines the whole point: keeping everyone thinking, all the time.
Intentional cold calling means using our knowledge of our students to select in ways that support learning, inclusion, and confidence.

Keep Everyone Thinking
The real power of cold calling is that it raises the thinking stakes for everyone. Our students can’t check out because they might be asked to contribute at any time. To maximise this, I:

• Give wait time after posing a question to the whole class. Then I choose which student I want to hear from.
• Use “No opt out” kindly. If a student struggles, it’s a reflection on my teaching. I help them, and elicit the bits they do understand. I always come back later to give them another chance.
• Allow my students the chance to have-a-go first, either using mini whiteboards or think-pair-share. This gives everyone a chance to rehearse their thinking before I cold call. It also gives me the opportunity to identify who might give a response that will help the whole class’s learning.

 Final Thoughts: Warm Routines Build Brave Learners
Cold calling is not about putting kids on the spot. It’s about building a culture where everyone’s thinking is valued, where participation is the norm, and where learning is a team effort.
When used with warmth, care, and intention, cold calling becomes a practice of inclusion, not pressure.
 
My #1 Tip for Teachers:
Start by cold calling during low-stakes questions and combine it with routines like whiteboards or think-pair-shares. Over time, it’ll feel natural, expected, and safe.
 
Want to explore more ways to check for understanding or build equitable participation? Reach out! I love helping teachers build classrooms where everyone’s voice is part of the learning. 

Education in Victoria is experiencing an exciting shift with the launch of the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0. This significant update incorporates elements of learning and teaching including an emphasis on Cognitive Load Theory and explicit instruction. The current education minister's active engagement, including attending professional learning sessions and mandating phonemic awareness and phonics in F-2 classes, marks a significant departure from past years when such topics received little attention. 

Reflecting on my own experiences, four years ago I participated in a department-sponsored professional learning course where phonics was merely an elective. At the course's conclusion, my school’s efforts in implementing a systematic synthetic phonics program were dismissed by the facilitator: the exact words were “We’ll just have to agree to disagree”. Two years ago, any mention of literacy and numeracy was notably absent from the then minister’s remarks at the Victorian Educational Excellence Awards. During another year-long program, decodable readers were described as "contrived". Less than six months ago, another department funded PL the need for and importance of explicit teaching was being dismissed. While hopeful about the impact of new initiative, these experiences underscore the significant work still needed to support educators in navigating change effectively.
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I have now helped lead my last three schools through significant change. I know that it is not a simple process, but our students are absolutely worth the effort it takes to ensure our teaching is as effective as possible.​

Although it is tempting to expect change to happen immediately, the reality is that it is a gradual process. This can be frustrating as every day we have a cohort of learners in front of us and we want the best learning experience for them TODAY. However, if we want the change to be substantive and meaningful then we need to take the time to ensure we do it effectively. 
It will take time to develop the knowledge of many leaders and teachers within our system. This new model challenges some of the ideas that were presented as truths during my initial teacher education, and I have no doubt that many colleagues will find some of these challenging. It will take time to access professional learning,  explore these ideas, and understand how to implement these effectively.
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The length of time taken to embed meaningful change is compounded by how stretched and overworked teachers already are. Our workloads tend to be massive, and having time to learn about new approaches often has to compete with a myriad of other things such as our day-to-day planning, assessment, reporting, managing behaviour, communicating with families, organising excursions and extracurricular activities… the list goes on.
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Our time is our most precious resource in education. We need to make sure that we spend it wisely.

Because our time is finite, prioritisation is essential. Teachers are stretched thin and often overwhelmed, raising the question of how we can be expected to adopt new practices while managing our current responsibilities. It is vital that any new initiatives are clearly prioritised, ensuring that educators are not inundated with conflicting demands. Schools should focus on a very limited number of goals, allowing teachers to engage deeply without feeling overwhelmed.
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Unfortunately, schools are complex places which generally means that there are a number of issues that compete to be a priority. It is too easy to get caught up in a new trend, or to spend too much time on things that only have a small impact on the education of our children. We should be critically assessing what our goals are and whether they will have a significant effect on our core business of teaching and learning.

In order to maximise our impact and our time, we need to ensure our priorities are aligned. When our teaching practices, curricula, assessments, and professional development all point in the same direction, we significantly enhance our potential for success. 

Too often competing priorities can end up with schools working at cross purposes. This is why it is exciting that the Victorian Teaching & Learning Model 2.0 highlights how we learn. This means that we are better positioned to ensure alignment by checking that our understandings are consistent across subjects and domains. A great example of this is evident in how explicit teaching is a core aspect of not only English and Mathematics, but also School-wide Positive Behaviour Support. This means that schools could align their priorities by focusing on ‘explicit teaching’ so that all staff are heading in the same direction.

It’s not enough just to make sure that we are aligned with our priorities. Because time is such a critical factor, we also need to stop doing things as well. We have to evaluate and ‘prune’ non-essential tasks that do not contribute to our core objectives. Just as a gardener removes excess growth to promote flourishing blooms, we should identify activities that divert time and energy from impactful work. Streamlining efforts frees up time for professional development, collaboration, and focusing on teaching. Sometimes the pruning we need to do is obvious and we get trim things that we are happy to see go. The harder task is in identifying practices that may be nice to do, but get in the way of the ones that are essential.

Meaningful change in education is a complex and multifaceted journey that requires intentional prioritisation, alignment of goals, and the courage to let go of non-essential tasks. With patience and commitment, we can continue to create thriving educational environments that support our students.

Prioritise
   Reflect on your current practices and identify one core priority that will drive change in your school.

Align
   Ensure that there is consistency in priorities across the school. Focus first on techniques or methods that are transferable, such as explicit instruction, or checking for understanding.

Prune
   Identify tasks or routines that are "nice-to-do" but don’t significantly impact student learning outcomes. Gradually phase these out to free up time for high-impact strategies that align with school priorities.

Engage  
   Actively seek out professional learning opportunities to deepen understanding and application in the classroom. There is so much great PL already available through sources like Think Forward Educators, Sharing Best Practice or What Works Series.

Collaborate
   We are fortunate that we schools have amazing expertise within them. Work together with colleagues to share insights and strategies, visit each others classrooms and lean on each other. 

Professional development (PD) is part and parcel of being a teacher. Ongoing professional learning aims to enhance teacher practice and ultimately improve student outcomes. It is seen as such an integral part of teaching that it is mandatory for me to complete at least 20 hours each year in order for me to maintain my teacher registration.

Of course, PD is essential. It upskills teachers, provides space for critical reflection, creates cohesion and can benefit our students. It is important for schools to allocate time, resources and expertise for positive PD.

Unfortunately, for the amount of time and money we spend on PD, a lot of it doesn't really have much impact. Too often it doesn't improve our practice, it doesn't provide us with new knowledge, and it fails to have an effect on our students.

​There are three things in particular that cause PD to be ineffective:

• Irrelevance
• Impracticality
• Isolation

The first issue with PD is that it is often irrelevant to the participants' specific roles. How many times have you found yourself in a PD session, wondering why you were there in the first place? Imagine an art teacher sitting through a PD about the new science curriculum—while it may not be a poorly delivered session, its content doesn’t directly apply to their daily work. If the material doesn’t connect to our role, the potential for a positive impact is minimal. Schools need to carefully consider who should attend particular PD sessions. Our time as educators is incredibly valuable, and wasting it on irrelevant training can be frustrating and demoralizing.

There are also times when the PD might actually be relevant, but the participants don’t perceive it as such. When teachers believe a PD session doesn't apply to them, it leads to disengagement. This is why it's crucial to establish and communicate clear reasons why a teacher will benefit from attending any given PD. When we understand the purpose and how it connects to our role, we’re far more likely to engage meaningfully. Otherwise, the perception of irrelevance can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where we go through the motions without taking anything away from the experience.
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Even if the content is relevant, the timing of the PD can greatly affect its effectiveness. For example, a workshop on establishing classroom routines will be far more impactful if held at the start of the school year rather than during Term 4. By then, routines are already set (or not), and the opportunity to implement the strategies is minimal. In this case, the PD may be excellent in terms of content, but its impact is diminished because it wasn’t offered when teachers needed it most. Thoughtful timing is as essential as relevant content in maximizing the benefits of PD, otherwise it can render it irrelevant.
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PD often fails when it fails to provide teachers with practical, actionable strategies that we can immediately implement in our classrooms. When PD focuses too much on theory and abstract concepts, with little consideration given to the day-to-day realities of teaching, we leave sessions with a lot of ideas but no clear understanding of how to apply them in their unique contexts. This disconnect between theory and practice means that the potential for lasting change in teaching practice is low.

Conversely, PD sessions sometimes overload us with too many new strategies at once, without providing sufficient follow-up support or time for reflection. Learning a new teaching method or tool takes time, and without the opportunity to practice, reflect, and refine it, it's unlikely to take last.  PD that delivers too much content all at once leaves us feeling overwhelmed and more likely to abandon the new strategies altogether.

In order to get this mix right, we need PD that offers teachers the opportunity to actively practice the techniques we are learning. Practicing new strategies during PD allows us to refine our approach, address challenges, and gain confidence before implementing them with students.It also gives us the opportunity to receive (kind) feedback from peers, before we get feedback from our students.
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PD fails to be beneficial when it occurs in isolation, disconnected from the broader context of a our daily responsibilities and our school's overall objectives. When PD is treated as a standalone event, it becomes difficult for us to carry the new ideas back into our classrooms in any sustainable or impactful way. Without a sense of continuity, the knowledge or strategies gained during the session can feel abstract, leaving us unsure of how to effectively integrate them into our existing practices. This "one and done" approach to PD limits its long-term value and potential impact on student outcomes.

PD too often lacks the follow-up and support necessary for us to truly embed new learnings, skills, and techniques. Effective professional learning should be a continuous process, integrated into the school's culture, where teachers receive regular feedback and have opportunities to revisit and refine what they’ve learned. Without ongoing support, the new strategies introduced in PD risk being forgotten or half-heartedly implemented. By embedding PD into a culture of collaboration and sustained practice, schools can create an environment where professional growth is ongoing, and the benefits of PD extend well beyond the initial session.

​Overall, professional development is essential for ensuring that teachers remain effective, engaged, and empowered in their roles, ultimately benefiting their students and the education system as a whole.

When you visit a dentist, you expect to receive treatment which reflects best practice.
When you employ an architect, you expect their designs to meet all the current regulations.
Chiropractors must adhere to government mandates.
And when you visit a doctor, you expect them to follow stringent guidelines to cure your ailment.
Why should teaching be different to these other professions?

The ideal of 'teacher autonomy' is a pervasive one. It is evident in statements about individual teachers being the ones best able to meet their students' needs. It exists in the dismissal of experts in other fields "who wouldn't understand because they're not teachers". It is seen through the belief that the pedagogical knowledge of an individual trumps the collective wisdom of research.
Idolisation of teacher autonomy is not only pervasive; it can be deeply unhelpful to our profession.

The idea that an individual teacher is the one best placed to meet their students' needs is a seductive one. It can be seen in recruitment campaigns to "be that teacher". But what happens if you are not meeting the needs of a child? The premise of teacher autonomy has now placed that individual teacher to blame. I think about the number of newly qualified teachers who leave the profession and wonder how many leave because they have been overwhelmed with too much choice. Teacher autonomy also leads to the idea that we can not use resources that have been prepared by somebody else. This wastes countless hours of teachers and burdens them with an unnecessary workload. 
The reality is that teachers need to draw on our collective experience and wisdom. We need to support each other. Of course, children are unique, but this is an argument to uphold one another, not to be left to flounder in freedom. Teacher autonomy is an unhelpful seduction because it inadvertently isolates us from our colleagues. 

When we go to our GP, we are not surprised when we get a referral to a physio, or a psychologist, or told to get a blood test, so the pathologist can have a look. Health professionals work with each other to provide what an individual needs. Why then do we ignore (or even belittle) the advice of experts from other fields? Of course, we specialise in education but, given the complexity of children, we need to be willing to accept assistance and wisdom from other fields. This cannot be only when we ask for it, because that is not a healthy relationship. Teacher autonomy is an unhelpful seduction because it isolates us from other professions.

Teacher autonomy enables teachers to self-select their own standards of evidence. This sounds enticing, but it allows for the anything to be considered acceptable research. A perfect example of this is the seemingly endless debates that exist around reading. The US's National Reading Panel  (2000), Australia's Rowe Report (2005), and the UK's Rose Report (2006) all had similar findings that systematic phonics is essential for reading. Yet, the debate rages on because teachers are empowered to put ideology over evidence under the guise of 'autonomy'. If a doctor, dentist, or architect used their personal beliefs to ignore the evidence-backed guidelines, it would be called 'malpractice'. Teacher autonomy is an unhelpful seduction because it isolates us from implementing best practice.

Teaching is the most noble profession. We are entrusted with the care and nurturing of children. It is our mission to enrich the lives of our students and teach the new concepts, help them master new skills, and learn how to be active participants in our world.
Of course, teachers still need choice, but it cannot be unrestricted. Teachers still need voice, but we must also respect the wisdom of others. Teachers still get to rejoice as we enable strong research evidence to become embedded practice. 
Let's stop making the ideal of teacher autonomy into a false ideal so that we can collectively create a strong education for every child.   

To the attention of the Australian Education Union Victorian Branch,

I am deeply appalled, devastated and hurt by the statement passed unanimously by the joint Primary and Secondary Sector Council on the 14th of June, 2024. As a passionate advocate for public education and a long-time member of the union I am puzzled by the stance put forward because it fails to support equality in education, downplays the importance of phonics in learning to read, and dismisses the hard work many members are already doing in their schools while increasing our workload.

I am deeply appalled that the AEU Vic fails to recognize the huge leap that the Minister’s announcement at the Age Education Summit is for equality in Victoria. Literacy is a social justice issue. Every child, regardless of background, has the right to be literate. While I applaud the AEU’s advocacy around school funding, I am appalled that the union is objecting to a move to make literacy education equitable. Victoria may be leading the other states in our NAPLAN results for reading, but still 1 in 4 students in Grade 3 fail to be proficient readers. This situation is worse for our disadvantaged, regional, rural and First Nations students. This is not an acceptable situation and the union should be actively supporting moves to change this. Ensuring that phonics is taught in all schools is the biggest lever that education can pull to achieve equity in our state.

I am devastated that the union has downplayed the importance of phonics in early reading. The willfully misleading phrase “that a range of teaching strategies to teach reading, including phonics” does not demonstrate a sound knowledge of critical importance of teaching phonics to all students. The National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy was conducted almost 20 years ago and clearly articulated the need for systematic phonics instruction, as the Minister is finally advocating. English is a morphophonemic language and all students need to be taught how to unlock the code that is written English. Early systematic, synthetic phonics is essential for all students.
The Minister should be applauded for finally embracing this crucial aspect, not subjected to unfounded criticism for “a lack of understanding”. I personally witnessed the Minister engage with Professional Learning on early literacy, handwriting his own notes, staying for several hours after his address, and consulting with a wide range of teachers, principals and other educators during the breaks. The union should be applauding that we finally have a Minister FOR Education in the Education State.

I am deeply hurt by the stance that the union has taken because it dismisses and disrespects the hard work that I, alongside many other teachers, have put into creating change for our students and in supporting teachers. I have introduced the explicit teaching of systematic phonics in multiple schools. Often this work has not been supported by the broader department and yet I, and many other members, have persevered- attending PL outside of contracted hours. A key piece of feedback from the teachers I support has been how much this approach has reduced their workload. Providing high-quality instructional resources results in teachers having a decreased burden in their workload. The union keeps highlighting this is the number one issue for their members. Why is the union objecting to a key reform that will alleviate the burden of workload from its members? Instead, the union has taken a stance that drives a wedge between teachers. I now do not feel supported, or even respected, by the union that is meant to stand with me in solidarity.
It should also be noted that this reform will not only ease the burden of our early years teachers. Differentiating for the broad range of students’ abilities adds hugely to teachers’ workloads. Often this stems from poor instruction (typified by whole language or balanced literacy) in the early years that leads to our significant number of students not being able to read at a proficient level. This reform seeks to finally address this issue in a meaningful way.

How does the union propose to reconcile the sense of appall, devastation and profound hurt that I, a loyal member and proud public teacher, feel in this statement against these reforms? These reforms have the potential to make a profound difference in not only our students lives, but also the wellbeing and professionalism of our teachers. I am carefully considering my future as a member of the Australian Education Union- Victoria Branch
Yours in hopeful future solidarity,

Edit: The AEU Vic Branch's statement can be found here

I've just realised that I've created over 700 slides in the first four weeks of term.
Why?
Because our school has introduced a consistent way to teach and review vocabulary.

Why is teaching vocabulary important?
Vocabulary is one of the five keys of reading (along with phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and comprehension). Teaching vocabulary is important in laying a foundation for students to build on. Students who know what a wider variety of words mean are able to unlock the meaning of texts more successfully than the child who struggles to understand what different words mean. In fact, students who have a broader vocabulary will also be better equipped to determine the meaning of unknown words when they encounter them. This is an example of the Matthew effect, where "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." This is an equity issue because students with limited vocabularies will struggle to learn new words from context alone and comprehend the full meaning of texts.

What words should we teach?
Given the vast number of words in the English language it is nigh on impossible to teach every word at school. I did the maths: it would require teaching a unique word every five minutes!
If we can't teach every word, which ones should we spend time focusing on? Students come to school already knowing many common words (tree, happy, shop, ball, tired). We don't really need to teach these as many children already know how to use these words. Of course we may need actively teach these if students come to us from language backgrounds other than English, or have developmental language delays etc.
There are also words that have a specific definition that is context dependent. We don't use these words unless we are referring to that exact thing (pedagogy, atmosphere, hypotenuse). These words need to be taught when we are teaching about that particular topic.
The rest of the words are used in a variety of different contexts and are what makes English such a rich language. This area include words like delectable, envy, graze and greed. These words are more likely to appear in written English, rather than spoken- which is one reason we need to ensure students have time to explore rich texts in class. I also think that this category of words are the ones that we can get the most bang for our buck- when students learn these words they can use them in a range of contexts.
These three categories of words can be referred to as tier 1, 2 and 3.

While there are definitely times when we need to explicitly teach tier 1 and tier 3 words, most of our time should be focused on tier 2 words. These are the types of words that students can use repeatedly in different contexts. It should be noted that these tiers are not distinct and there is plenty of grey area between each tier. A guiding principle in selecting words at our school has been: which words do I want to see my students use?

How should we teach vocabulary?
Once upon a time when I was teaching a new word to students I would first ask them if anyone knew what it meant. This typically resulted in students telling me definitions that were incorrect, or at best partially correct. The problem I then faced was, not only had I wasted a few precious minutes of instruction, but other students had now heard incorrect definitions and may have developed fresh misconceptions.
At my current school we follow a simple procedure to explicitly teach new words:

1. Read the word in context. Our vocabulary words come from texts we read as a class. Students have encountered (or are about to encounter) the word and provides a meaningful opportunity to teach it. 
2. Provide a definition. The teacher tells students the definition/s of the word in simple language. 
3. Give examples. The teacher uses the word in context in multiple ways. One of the examples is an image that further demonstrates the word's meaning.
4. Have students use the word. Now is the time when we check our students' understanding by getting them to use the word in sentences of their own.
5. Review. Most of the 700+ slides I have created are focused on reviewing previously taught words. Encountering a word isn't enough for students to understand it. We want our students to not only understand these words, we want them to be confident in using them, so we provide them with plenty of practise. Our reviews are designed to take less than 5 minutes, but allow students to retrieve the words that we have previously taught.

​Our review activities include matching words to definitions, working out what word fits in a sentence, and coming up with our own sentences. I started to get even fancier with the variety of activities in our review, but quickly realised that keeping it simple was better for our students. Instead of having to think about what each activity is asking them to do, they are free to focus on retrieving the words they have previously learnt. Likewise, I also started to explore word matrices, but again realised that this was overcomplicating it (for the moment).

If you want to see a sample week then click here.

​Resources:
I use etymonline.com for the teacher notes.
I've found wordsmyth.net gives consistently student-friendly definitions.
Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction by Beck, McKeown & Kucan is my go to resource.

It is the spring holidays here in Australia. We are experiencing a burst of gloriously sunny days. Yesterday, I dusted off my bike, squeezed into my lycra and went for a ride through the rolling hills of the goldfields were I live. Despite having not ridden since last summer, my skills came back to me: I knew when to change gears, when to get out of the saddle, how to navigate the bends in the road, to listen out for cars that were approaching, and managed to have a conversation with another rider I met along the way. The idiom 'it's like riding a bike' rang true as skills that I haven't used for the best part of a year came flooding back to me. I was even able to navigate the swooping magpie as it hit my helmet four times.

Riding a bike is a skill that I have mastered. I didn't have to consciously think about each skill as I did it. If I hadn't mastered these skills then it would have been much harder to deal with the angry magpie as I would have needed to think about how I could watch its shadow out of the corner of my eye, duck at the right moments while pedalling, changing gears and steering.

Mastery learning has an essential place in education. However, it wasn't a term I had come across until I was trained in Direct Instruction. The idea that we want students to understand concepts "as well as their own name" became transformative in my teaching. Through mastery learning I expect my students to learn many things without the need for conscious thought. 

As I learnt about cognitive load theory, the importance of mastery learning became more obvious. Mastery learning allows us to free up our working memory because we have stored things accessibly in our long term memory. If students are able to recall knowledge and concepts without active thought then it allows them to concentrate on applying this knowledge in more complex ways. A student who hasn't learnt their phoneme-grapheme correspondences automatically will struggle to read fluently or comprehend what they have read. A student who hasn't mastered their times tables will struggle to solve a problem that requires students to identify factors.
I never truly mastered my musical scales and know how hard I had to think about each one before I played it. Meanwhile my friend who mastered his scales now plays for a world class orchestra.

Teaching to mastery also means that students are less likely to forget things. This is enhanced by implementing regular reviews in the class. Reviews can be fast-paced if students have mastered concepts. Reviews allow students the opportunity to recall previously learnt material and the more frequently they are given this opportunity, the stronger the pathway to this knowledge is.

While Direct Instruction remains an epitome of mastery learning, Ochre Education is creating new resources for Australian teachers to implement mastery learning through explicit instruction in their classrooms. AERO has put out a guide about Mastery Learning and there are many UK-based resources on this topic as well.

It is easy to forget how important it is to learn things to mastery. The claim that we need to move away from facts-based education to broader concepts such as critical thinking is typical of this amnesia. How can you think critically if you don't have fundamental knowledge to base it on? I know that I could only analyse Debussy's Nocturnes because my music teacher took the time to teach us about the impressionism movement that occurred in the visual arts. 
A similarly condescending cry is that we can 'just google it' (or 'just ChatGPT it'). The ability to access a vast array of information actually emphasises the need for a good grounding in common knowledge, otherwise we are unable to understand which links are useful, accurate or relevant. 

Our students deserve to be taught to mastery. Our students are capable of understanding concepts and knowledge to a level of automaticity that they know it 'as well as their own name'. Let's ensure that every child gets an education that empowers to build on this knowledge.

I've just come back from a quick trip to Sydney, where the light display, Vivid, opened.
While I enjoyed seeing the Opera House and Harbour Bridge illuminated, the purpose of my visit was to learn more about a language intervention called 'Story Champs'.

I'd heard whispers about this program and how effective it is, but I'd never seen it in action and was hesitant about the price of shipping it from the US. So when the opportunity arose to order it with free shipping and attend face-to-face PL on it, I jumped on the chance! 

I joined a room full of speech therapists, as one of a handful of teachers (and one grandparent who wanted to learn more about supporting her grandchild). We heard from Dr Trina Spencer and Dr Douglas Peterson who met as doctoral candidates and discovered they were both passionate about literacy development. Their research led to the creation of Story Champs and the CUBED assessment both of which are available from Language Dynamics.

The science of language and reading is becoming more mainstream. It is great that the skills needed for the word recognition side of the simple view of reading are becoming more common in Australian classrooms. It is important that we ensure we are also teaching language comprehension skills. The focus of my day yesterday was on how we can effectively and systematically teach these skills.

Oral language is the foundation for all our literacy skills. It needs to be taught first and continuously. The stronger our oral language skills, then the stronger our reading & writing will be. After all, if you can't understand something when it's oral, then you won't understand it when it's written.

There is a clear emphasis on developing oral language skills in the early years. However, how much of this development is done in a  systematic way? And how do we know? 

"Weighing a pig won't help it grow, but what gets tested gets taught."

The importance of assessing oral language so that we actually know what we need to teach our students led to the creation of CUBED.  This (free) assessment is broken into 2 subtests that address the 2 factors of the simple view of reading.

1. Dynamic Decoding Measures assesses the word recognition side through measuring phonemic awareness, word identification, and decoding.​
2. Narrative Language Measures (NLM) focuses on students ability to comprehend and retell stories. This assessment has a listening measure (NLM:Listening) and a reading measure (NLM:Reading).

There's a flashy data management system that would make administration and reviewing the data very easy and painless.

I used NLM:Listening for the first time last year. I was impressed that I could assess of a child's comprehension without the need for the student to decode anything. It let me lift the lid on what the child understood without their decoding being a potential barrier.

There is a third version of CUBED about to be released. This edition will extend CUBED beyond the current K-Grade 3 offering up to 8th Grade. I am excited about what this will mean for assessing the comprehension of our upper primary students.

Weighing a pig is one thing but you need to know what to feed it to fatten it. This is where Story Champs fits in. To develop systematically oral language skills Story Champs combines 3 active ingredients:

1. Visual materials: Stories are told with cards with simple illustrations. Icons are placed on the illustrations to assist with telling and retelling. The scaffold of the visuals is quickly faded as responsibility for the retell shifts to the student. 
2. Structured stories:  There are 24 stories included. However, each story is rewritten with varying complexity (depending on the teaching focus) resulting in 144 story exemplars. Each story is designed to make the structure obvious to students. 
3. Teaching procedures: There are clear lesson plans to follow, written for whole class, small groups and 1:1. They are prescriptive enough while allowing flexibility. Names can be changed to more familiar ones and terms like 'candy bar' can be easily swapped to 'chocolate bar'.  

Story Champs aims to make the patterns of stories obvious. I saw this firsthand this morning when I went through a story with my 4yo. He quickly picked up how to retell the story and was then able to generate a personal story following the same pattern. 
The 7yo saw what was happening and so I chose a slightly more complex story and she just as quickly picked up on the pattern. She also added to her vocabulary along the way (tentatively, resolved, radiant). The 7yo even wrote down her personal story.

This week I am planning to use the CUBED NLM:Listening assessment with my class. I am looking forward to start using Story Champs. It will probably be once a week, with our read-alouds the other four days focusing on building background knowledge. I can also see the huge potential benefits for students in our intervention program in both small groups and 1:1.

Recently I was listening to an audiobook. Thanks to a dodgy Bluetooth connection, every couple of minutes a word was skipped. Most of the time, I could work out what the word might have been. It was tedious, but I could still follow the story. Until it cut out as they mentioned “the myth of…”. I had no context for what that missing word might be. There were very few clues in what I had heard. I had even caught the initial sound of the word, but given that there are over 4000 words starting with ‘m’ (according to a scrabble dictionary), this was of little use. I was left frustrated and perplexed. It wasn’t until they later repeated the phrase that I knew they were discussing “the myth of measurement”.

As a fluent reader, I could fill in most of the blanks despite my dodgy Bluetooth connection. However, this is the complicated guessing game that occurs in many classrooms under the guise of reading instruction. Three cueing is the misguided belief that we need to consider the meaning, syntax, and visual information to decode words. Instead it promotes guessing based on context or using clues provided by pictures. This style of instruction is evident in the current Victorian Curriculum Foundation English elaboration, which has students “attempting to work out unknown words by combining contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge”.

Of course, context is important in comprehending the text. However, the first step towards understanding must be accurate decoding. To create readers who are good decoders students need to be able to orthographically map words, through linking letters with the sounds they represent. To achieve this, we need to explicitly and systematically teach phonics. Decoding occurs when we focus on the letters in front of us and process them in order. If I am looking at anything other than the text on a page to decode, then I am just guessing. Of course, phonics is only one aspect of reading, but it is an essential skill. Students who can decode words have a much better chance at comprehending the text in front of them.

I recall a student who was reading chapter books. Whenever he got to a word he didn’t recognise, his eyes would jump to the small picture. This child was unfortunately an instructional casualty of three cueing. He had inadvertently been taught that he would understand the word if he looked somewhere other than the word. This is exactly the type of reading behaviour that leads to a ‘third-grade reading slump’.

Three cueing is often seen as a hallmark of ‘balanced literacy’. Although there is no clear definition of what balanced literacy actually is, it is nevertheless a popular term in Australian schools. It certainly featured prominently in my training as a primary teacher just over a decade ago. One of the texts we were referred to was Fountas & Pinnell’s chapter called ‘Guided Reading Within a Balanced Literacy Program’ (1996). So imagine my surprise when the same authors posted a blog last year distancing themselves from the term ‘balanced literacy’! Unfortunately, this shift away from the ‘balanced literacy’ label doesn’t seem to coincide with any substantive change in their approach to teaching reading.

Last year, social media erupted as a moderator for Fountas & Pinnell’s facebook group suggested that we should accept that 20% of students will be unable to read proficiently. I am not sure where this figure came from, and Fountas & Pinnell have since apologised. However, to claim that 1 in 5 was an acceptable rate of failure caused an understandable outburst. Imagine the outcry if 20% of students didn’t have lunch! This equates to over 800,000 current students in Australia. As educators, we should not accept this high number of instructional casualties.

Emily Hanford's latest podcast Sold a Story is shining a light on practices that are common in many classrooms. Well-meaning teachers are unintentionally teaching their students how to be poor readers. Instead of teaching students to effectively decode words, we are telling them to look at pictures or use cues other than the words themselves. This is leading to students becoming instructional casualties. Good readers decode words accurately and automatically. This is what we need to be teaching our students to do in order to avoid any more instructional casualties.

There are far too many stories of children who are instructional casualties of three cueing. The devastation, heartbreak and illiteracy that are perpetuated by the prevalence of this practice is shocking! Think about your family and friends. How many of them are you willing to allow to be instructional casualties? How can we possibly condemn such a large proportion of them to a life of struggling to read?
Three cueing, by its nature, leads students to guess at words. This creates instructional casualties who become poor readers. Our children deserve to be taught the skills they need to decode words accurately. Teaching phonics systematically and explicitly as part of our literacy instruction empowers every child to read.
 
A version of this article originally appeared at https://educationhq.com/news/heartbreak-and-illiteracy-three-curing-creates-instructional-casualties-108331/

There has been quite a buzz created by Emily Hanford’s latest podcast Sold a Story. If you haven’t listened to it yet then I strongly encourage you to do so. At the time of writing I am eagerly awaiting the third episode to be released.

Over the last five decades cognitive scientists, psychologists, and researchers have unveiled a lot about how we learn to read. Emily Hanford is exploring why this knowledge hasn’t made its way into our classrooms. There is a different idea about how students learn to read that is much more popular and prominent is schools and education faculties. 

This origin of this idea is the focus of the second episode of Sold a Story, particularly focusing on Dame Marie Clay’s work and the Reading Recovery program she founded. It should be acknowledged that Clay did some important work in advocating for early intervention and remediation for students with difficulties learning to read. However there are aspects of her work that do not hold up to scrutiny today.   
I was taught this idea that beginning readers need to use cues, such as a picture, or grammatical structure, to decode unfamiliar word at university just over a decade ago. My first school used Reading Recovery as its intervention program. I remember being gently rebuffed when I tried to work out what students in my class were doing in intervention so that I could better support them in the class. Little did I know how expensive this program was, both financially, and also in terms of costing children the chance for effective reading instruction.

Reading Recovery is an expensive intervention. It costs to train a teacher in Reading Recovery. According to their Australian website you must have at least 5 years’ experience teaching before embarking on a yearlong training course. These teachers work with students 1:1 for half an hour, five times a week for 10-20 weeks. In Victoria, this equates to a cost of over $2500 for every student who receives a 10-week Reading Recovery intervention. While expensive, it could be argued to be worth it if Reading Recovery was an effective intervention. However, numerous studies have indicated that any short-term positive impacts from this intervention are not sustained.

The real cost of Reading Recovery is that precious instructional time is spent teaching children to focus on words in inefficient ways. Clay was aware of different theories of how we read, claiming “On the one hand the traditional, older view sees reading as an exact process with an emphasis on letters and words, while on the other hand, a more recent set of theories sees reading as an inexact process, a search for meaning during which we only sample enough visual information to be satisfied that we have received the message of the text (Clay 1979, p.1- emphasis is mine).

This idea using just enough visual information alongside other cues is a recurring theme in Clay’s writings. She explores the idea that “text carries redundant information, more than the reader usually attends to (Clay 1991, p.331). This idea is explored through by blanking out a number of letters or words in passages to demonstrate how good readers supposedly ‘problem-solve’ or predict as we are reading. 

 I am not quite sure how these activities aren’t guessing. In fact Ken Goodman, who according to Clay was a leading authority on the reading process, refers to it as the ‘psycholinguistic guessing game’.

It’s interesting to note that Clay suggests that we should observe eye movements, as this is exactly what scientists started to research in the 70s. It became really clear that, instead of just sampling the letters in a word, proficient readers track every letter in each word in order. The idea that readers just need to get an approximate shape of a word was clearly debunked in the 80s (Ehri & Wilce 1985). It was demonstrated that proficient readers use their knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences to decode words accurately and seemingly automatically. Clay appears to be aware of this research, having referenced Ehri in 2005.

Unfortunately, systematic phonics is not something that Clay advocated for. A trusted colleague has told me that when they were trained in Reading Recovery they were told to never use the prompt “sound it out” to a child came to a word they had difficulty with.

By 2005 there was an acknowledgement that some phonics instruction was needed within Reading Recovery, it appears to be analytical, where the focus is on breaking a word gradually into smaller parts. There does not appear to be a clear scope and sequence to this approach. In fact they appear to be discouraged as Clay states “teaching sequences of a standard kind are unlikely to meet the needs of struggling students”. The resulting ‘word-work’ (avoiding the term phonics) activities are somewhat baffling. Clay suggests that no more than 2-3 minutes per half-hour session is spent ‘taking words apart’. This limits the crucial phonic knowledge that struggling readers need in order to be able to gain meaning from a written text. There is also a big focus on separating words into onset & rime, which is a less efficient strategy than teaching how to blend individual phoneme-grapheme correspondence.

There is a more subtle yet equally worrying argument that emerges throughout Clay’s work. The idea that “well-prepared children seldom fail to learn to read” (Butler & Clay, 1987, p37) implies that if a child doesn’t learn then blame can be placed with their home background. I believe that this is a dangerous idea. It creates division between educators and families. Of course, students come from a wide variety of experiences before school. However, educators should take ownership of the things within our control. Ensuring that every child receives quality literacy instruction is the core work of teachers.  

I don’t understand why people continue to defend Clay’s work as the basis for effective intervention. It is costly and doesn’t have long term positive effects. Struggling readers are taught to use cues other than the word when reading. The limited, unsystematic approach to phonics further compounds the disadvantage that struggling readers. Readers who struggle must be taught how to decode in order to gain any message from a written text.

I wonder how many more people would be able to read today if Clay had heeded her own words. 

References:
Butler, D. & Clay, M. (1987). Reading begins at home. Heinemann Publishers
Clay, M. (1979). Reading: The Patterning of Complex Behaviour. Heinemann Education Books
Clay, M. (1991). Becoming literate: the construction of inner control. Heinemann Education
Clay, M. (2005). Literacy lessons: designed for individuals, Part 1 & 2. Heinemann Education
Ehri, L. C., & Wilce, L. S. (1985). Movement into Reading: Is the First Stage of Printed Word Learning Visual or Phonetic? Reading Research Quarterly, 20(2), 163–179. https://doi.org/10.2307/747753