To: Senator Simon Birmingham: Minister of Education; Australia
Re: Response to the ABC Learning Curve Forum aired Friday 18th November 2016 Brisbane
Re: Request for an audience with Senator Birmingham to outline a realistic and viable solution for the matters raised, including dyslexia
Dear Senator Birmingham,
I am a teacher whom, along with my speech pathologist wife, has worked within our private practice business Tyquin Group Speech Pathology and Reading Clinic (established 1989) since I left the classroom in the mid 1990's.
Our interaction with reading and dyslexia commenced in 1996 when University of Qld was implementing their world - leading research into phonological awareness. This is one of the most highly represented methodologies within the arena of evidence - based programs prioritized by educators the world over. It is also the foundation of programs such as Multilit (Macquarie University) PAL (University of Queensland), FastForward and Reading Rockets, to name just a few.
Back in the 1990's as a speech pathology practice we were utilizing these methods but also found they had certain limitations. Adding psychology, occupational therapy and optometry into our practice, it gave us a great opportunity to pursue the best of what each discipline had to offer and then we worked towards creating a composite cross-disciplinary solution.
From inception to now, there has been essential technological advancements within IT, computers, computer software and internet speeds. These technologies had limited our progress especially in the earlier years, but now realization of this project. in both heavily populated cities and regional communities is possible.
Our name for this new technology and education solution is BehaviouralReading and POD, as in pea pod.
A hallmark of our BR/POD method and program is the speed and efficiency that results are achieved, especially with the lower to very low (Tier3) students including the dyslexic population. It is also tolerant of a wide range of student ages from Grade 3 to Grade 12. Within its intrinsic design, it is also built to act as a broad-brush equalizer for the developmental variations inevitably found across a cohort of Preschool to Grade 3 students. Utilizing the best research, concepts and our own innovation, the neuroplastic brain changes associated with phonological awareness, visual processing, central executive function, working memory, psychological stress and the complex interplay between the myriad combinations of those factors has been incorporated into a clever and innovative internet/web-served software design.
2015 - 2016 saw a preliminary commercial trial happen in a few schools. As part of our testing and early commercial rollout, about 25 schools in the Lower Hunter Valley region have been using BR and POD for the past year. Recently NSW Education has held meetings to share the excellent outcomes to even more schools in the area.
The Federal Governments 2013 Education Act target of being within the world rankings as a top 5 country by 2025 appears an ambitious target. Considering that the current cohort of Grade 1 students will be quantifying our ranking at that time, a prompt solution is needed. The comparative rankings have seen Australia fall steadily over the past 12 years as cited in the document 'Policy insights - Five Challenges in Australian School Education" Professor Geoff N Masters AO (ACER Issue #5 May 2016) which gives a comprehensive evaluation of current practices, possible solutions and some comparisons to other countries. In his conclusion though, important phrases of note include: 'deeply entrenched educational processes', 'real reform.... depend on tackling our deepest and most stubborn educational challenges', 'progress, ...... is often slow and solutions continue to elude us'.
BehaviouralReading and POD is a real reform. It is capable of delivering timely outcomes through innovation and circumventing the 'deeply entrenched educational processes... and challenges'. It is also capable of rapid progress and is a genuinely new solution not simply a repackaged version of the old.
The BehaviouralReading and POD team is here and ready for action. We are nimble enough to respond at short notice and hope that we have an opportunity to enter a dialogue leading to solutions capable of resolving the enormous challenges faced by educators in Australia. 2017 sees a great opportunity to do a 'proof of concept' early in the year followed by a rolling implementation later throughout 2017 and beyond.
Best regards
Philip