Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased that we have an opportunity to discuss this important issue of dyslexia. Like many people, I have had a personal experience of this. I spent a good decade trying to help my son, going through every one of the particular programs, the coloured glasses, the orthotics—the whole range of ideas that people dreamt up as possible solutions for this problem of dyslexia. I am pleased to say that, finally, my son, in his late 20s, worked his way through these issues and ended up with a first class honours degree from Curtin University, so these things can be overcome. But I do understand, at a very personal level, the trauma that can be involved.

I want to say first up that we have to make sure that we are not creating instructional casualties. There is a very strong argument that many of the children that are currently diagnosed as having learning difficulties are in fact the victims of failed pedagogy. There is an increasing understanding that some of the fads that we adopted in the 1980s, in terms of the way in which we taught reading, have contributed to this problem. I think the very first thing that we have to do is look at our pedagogy. If we get our pedagogy right and use an explicit instruction model, then we know that around 95 per cent of children will be able to readily learn to read and write. But there will always be some children for whom there is an added problem that cannot be solved by the pedagogy alone.

I have great respect from Mandy Nayton, who is the Executive Director of SPELD in WA. She is doing extraordinary work with schools and in prisons to ensure that we have the best possible way of delivering literacy to our community and that we really have an evidence-based system. It would be true to say that Mandy has some concerns about some of the proposals. I want to put on record some of her comments.

She says: 'I think, if we are going to head down the dyslexia-friendly schools path, we need to be very careful about the model we select and the message we are sending. We are of the view that a dyslexia- or learning-disability-friendly school is a school that is inclusive, welcome and responsive to a diverse range of needs of all students, while maintaining high expectations from all students; provides evidence-based instruction to all students, including well-delivered oral language and phonological awareness instruction in Foundation Year 1; has a structured synthetic phonics program for all children in the early years; and, throughout the primary years, has explicit instruction in vocabulary, reading comprehension and spelling, in addition to a systematically delivered program that teaches the foundation skills necessary to write accurately, fluently and with meaning. Children with learning difficulties, including dyslexia, will be far more easily identified in those schools because they will generally be the children who have persistent and enduring difficulties in learning to read and write, despite this high quality instruction.'

It is important that we collate the knowledge that we have nationally and that we have a sound, evidence-based way of proceeding with this. But we must first and foremost ensure that we are not creating instructional casualties with a failed model of pedagogy.

Debate adjourned.

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