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Reading and writing disorders

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​​Inclusive teaching of read​ing and writing

The Reading and Writing Centre is your centre for expert advice and professional learning in child and adolescent reading and writing disorders.

Inclusive education team infographic​: Learning to read and write is a complex and dynamic system with multiple points of vulnerability for children with language learning needs and developmental disabilities.​ Leading an effective and efficient inclusive education team requires awareness of the skills and knowledge that different team members bring to your whole school approach to prevention, early identification and support of reading and writing disorders.

Early years and preve​​ntion

While formal reading and writing instruction typically begins when children enter school, access to written language is founded in strong oral language competency.

The Reading and Writing Centre works with early years educators, parents and caregivers to:

  • increase understanding of the integral relationship between spoken and written language
  • create language and literacy-rich home and learning environments.

Increasing understanding of the typical progression of oral language and emergent literacy development will facilitate early identification of children at-risk for reading difficulties.

Speech Pathology Australia produced the Communication Milestone Kit​ to outline how early childhood educators and speech language pathologists can work together to ensure that children reach these milestones within the expected timeframes.

Identification and support

The Reading and Writing Centre builds the capacity of regional and school-based inclusive educational teams to:

  • identify students at-risk of or experiencing difficulties learning to read
  • plan interventions and supports delivered at all levels within a whole school approach.

There is a large and growing body of research that supports the Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tunmer 1986) as a valid conceptual framework for understanding the broad landscape of reading development and reading difficulties.

Dyslexia

Understand

Dyslexia is a language based reading disorder. It is a word-level reading disability stemming from an impairment in the phonological component of language. It is characterised by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, decoding and by poor spelling. The department recognises dyslexia as a disability and makes adjustments to enable students with dyslexia to access and participate in education.

Infographic – Dyslexia

NCCD case studies​​

Str​​ategies

State schools are allocated resources to support all students with disability whether they have a diagnosis or not. Schools can access the expertise of speech language pathologists, support teachers (literacy and numeracy) and guidance officers to develop a profile of strengths and challenges in reading. This profile informs differentiated teaching and targeted intervention strategies.

Infographic – Dyslexia support strategies

Infographic – Phonics

Infographic – Sight words

Infographic – Text selection

​Developmental Language Disorder

​U​nderstand

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is diagnosed when children present with persistent difficulty producing or understanding language for no apparent reason (Bishop, Snowling, Thompson, Greenhalgh, CATALISE consortium 2017). Learning to read is a complex and dynamic system with multiple points of vulnerability for children with DLD (Catts, Nielsen, Bridges and Liu 2016; Murphy, Justice, O’Connell, Pentimonti and Kaderavek 2016). Children with persistent language difficulties are highly likely to experience reading comprehension difficulties in components of word reading, listening comprehension or both.

Infographic – DLD and reading

Infographic – DLD and writing​

Strategies

Investigation of the language skills that underpin the components of reading comprehensio—word reading and listening comprehension—allows speech language pathologists to develop a reader profile. This profile of strengths and challenges in language and in reading comprehension informs evidence-based interventions, instructional strategies and differentiated curriculum delivery.

Infographic – Explicit vocabulary instruction

Infographic – Read it Again – FoundationQ!

Infographic – Tell it Again Q1!

Infographic – Words are my superpower

Differentiate and access

The Reading and Writing Centre builds teachers' understanding of:

  • the specific nature of reading disorders
  • how to differentiate the teaching and learning environment, curriculum and assessment materials to meet the learning and access needs of students with reading disorders.

Building the evidence base

The Reading and Writing Centre partners with internal and external organisations to build the evidence base in the field of reading and writing disorders.

Book: Reading Success in the P​rimary Years

Reading Success in the Primary Years is an important publication that describes a successful collaboration between the Queensland Department of Education and 3 Queensland universities. It explains how to bridge the gap between research and practice in the identification and remediation of students experiencing difficulties in reading. You can download an electronic version on the Springer Link website​.

Rural and remote

The Reading and Writing Centre provides support for targeted clusters of schools in rural and remote locations. Collaboration with Regional staff and the Centres for Learning and Wellbeing provide the opportunity to build staff capability and knowledge in the area of reading and writing development and disorder.​

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Last updated 30 January 2023