QUT Digital Repository: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/

Woods, Annette F. and Wyatt-Smith, Claire and Elkins, John (2005) Learning difficulties in the Australian context : policy, research and practice. Curriculum Perspectives, 25(3). pp. 1-14.

© Copyright 2005 [please consult the authors]

Title: Learning Difficulties in the Australian Context: Policy, Research and Practice

Authors: Annette Woods, Claire Wyatt-Smith & John Elkins

Centre for Applied Language, Literacy and Communication, Griffith University, Australia

Contact details: Dr Annette Woods Centre for Applied Language, Literacy and Communication, and School of Education and Professional Studies Griffith University PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Qld, Australia 9726 Ph: +61 (0)7 555 29043 Fax: +61 (0)7 555 28599 Email: a.woods@griffith.edu.au Associate Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith Centre for Applied Language, Literacy and Communication M10 4.02. Griffith University. QLD. 4111. Australia. Ph: (07) 3875 5744 Fax: (07) 3875 5965 Email: c.wyatt-smith@griffith.edu.au

Professor John Elkins Centre for Applied Language, Literacy and Communication M10 4.02. Griffith University. QLD. 4111. Australia. Ph: (07)3875 5835 Fax: (07) 3875 5965 Email: J.Elkins@griffith.edu.au

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Introduction

In recent years in Australia, and more broadly, literacy and numeracy outcomes in schooling have

assumed considerable prominence in education at state, territory and national levels. This has fore

grounded the issue of provision of instruction to that group of students who are identified as

experiencing learning difficulties. In the Australian context this group is usually defined as those

students having significant difficulties in acquiring literacy and numeracy skills due to factors that

are not easily attributable to social, cultural or medical reasons.

In this paper we map out the field of educational provision to this group of students. We begin by

troubling the notion that this group of students is somehow a homogenous, definable group whose

difficulties in learning school-based literacy and numeracy can be attributed to a deficit in

individual capacity is unsustainable. We then move to map the context of policy and research at a

national and state level. Our aim is to set the context for the review of intervention approaches

that concludes the paper. We review the research base for Reading Recovery along with

intervention provided by teacher aides and support teacher learning difficulties. While we do not

suggest that these approaches are the only components of educational provision for this target

group, they are primary roles in the Queensland context at least, and for our purposes, as such

warrant close investigation.

Setting the scene

While Australia currently has no prescribed national curriculum, all state and territory systems

work toward shared goals as described within the National Goals of Schooling (Ministerial

Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 1999a). Part of the process for

achieving these goals involves reporting achievement against national benchmarks for literacy

and numeracy (Commonwealth Department of Education Training and Youth Affairs, 1997) for

students in Years 3, 5 and 7. At present this reportable data is collected through state and

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territory-based census tests. However there is a clear move towards national tests in literacy and

numeracy, evidenced by the formation of a Performance Measurement Taskforce tasked with the

development of an assessment framework to inform national tests in literacy and numeracy. Also

of note is the recent Australian Government announcement that it was taking its commitment to

parental choice in education one step further. Some of the latest targeted funding for those

students identified as not reaching year 3 benchmark in reading will be spent at the discretion of

parents in most states, instead of being provided to schools as additional funding for school-based

support. All of these initiatives point to a clear focus on assessment and public reporting within

the Federal Government’s commitment to improve literacy and numeracy outcomes of students.

This focus seems especially to be the case in relation to those students identified as being at risk

of not making satisfactory progress at designated junctures in their primary schooling.

In this policy context, the term ‘learning difficulty’ is the most commonly used term to describe

that significant minority of students who do not seem to respond to their classroom programs. For

this group, there is often a particular focus on literacy and numeracy provision as a key means of

improving learning outcomes. The term ‘learning disability’ is usually reserved in Australia to

refer to a more specific group of students who have or are expected to have persistent problems

learning literacy and/or numeracy over an extended period of time (Elkins, 2002). This is in

contrast to other educational contexts, that of the United States as an example, where ‘learning

disabilities’ is employed to refer to those students who in Australia would most usually be

classified as experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ (Ashman & Elkins, 2002). The decision to favour

‘learning difficulties’ as a term in Australia can be traced back to the 1976 House of

Representatives Standing Committee, whose members suggested that there was no evidence to

suggest an underlying cause for these students experiencing difficulties in learning. As this paper

reviews policy within the Australian context, the Australian sense of the term ‘learning

difficulties’ will be used throughout.

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Literacy and, albeit to a lesser extent, numeracy, remain key concepts in most Western education

systems’ approaches to equity and social justice. Relevant to this review are two themes that have

become prominent in recent policy within this field. The first is a general narrowing of literacy

and numeracy definitions when these come to be tied to accountability measures, funding and in

relation to programmatic decision-making. Recent trends in the United States for instance around

the ‘scientific’ evidence required for reading programs to receive ‘sponsorship’ - the term used

within the United States to define those programs supported under the auspices of the ‘No Child

Left Behind’ Act (United States of America, 2001) - are a case in point. This trend is also evident

in Australia’s benchmarking process (Commonwealth Department of Education Training and

Youth Affairs, 1997) and its ensuing state-based testing regimes (Queensland School Curriculum

Council, 2001).

The second theme is an expansion of resource allocation to early literacy and numeracy, and more

particularly to the identification, intervention and remediation of ‘learning difficulties’ in the

early years of schooling. This focus is despite the fact that it is becoming increasingly clear – on

the basis of longitudinal statewide test data (Luke, Woods, Land, Bahr, & McFarland, 2002;

Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 2001, 2002, 2003)

and continued evidence pointing to the existence of a ‘fourth grade slump’ (Gee, 1999; Luke,

2003) – that early literacy intervention is not of itself, sufficient to secure sustained improved

literacy outcomes for a large percentage of students. While early diagnosis of learning difficulties

and targeted interventions are critical, calls from socio-political education researchers highlight

the incompleteness of this approach as a solution to the complex issues surrounding youth and the

ever changing futures that they are challenged with (Luke & Luke, 2001). A body of evidence

that questions the effectiveness, across various measures, of such one-shot methods provides

further support for questioning this approach (Greenleaf, Jimenez, & Roller, 2002; Moore &

Wade, 1998; Phillips & Smith, 1997). Against this backdrop, we now turn our attention to

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consider in more detail some of the issues related to defining the term ‘learning difficulties’, and

the implications of this defining for how intervention for students is provided.

Defining learning difficulties

As part of daily engagement with school-based literacy and numeracy instruction, students are

categorised and often grouped according to perceived competence. This process is part of what

schools do as they attempt to make provision for students. Terms such as ‘learning difficulty’, ‘at-

risk’, ‘special needs’ and ‘needing higher than normal levels of support’ are used in schools to

describe that group of students identified as exhibiting learning problems related to

developmental and academic skills (National Health and Medical Research Council, 1990). These

terms often stand unchallenged when used in schools, and yet Louden reminds us that

what the terms mean, which children they are applied to, and what consequences these

labels have for children varies from State to State and from school to school.

(Louden, 2000)

In many respects the actual term used to describe this group is secondary to the practices that

surround its use. Regardless of the term selected at a school or system level, once the term has

been used to characterise a student’s learning, it is the ensuing social practices of identification,

division and labelling that enable or constrain the student’s possibilities for learning literacy and

numeracy.

The permeability of the boundaries around any such term or definition, once used within schools,

is also worth consideration. It has been recognised for some time that issues of gender, behaviour,

ethnicity, language and accent, poverty and location, along with other social, cultural and

environmental and cognitive factors, come together in complex ways to impact on student

achievement in schools. Of issue here is how such factors tend not to be auxiliary to the

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identification and labelling of students in schools, or to the consequences of such practices for

particular students. They are indeed composite to these practices themselves, operating at the

interface of literacy and numeracy provision and pedagogy for this group of students.

In some systems, such as those within the United States, where the process of classifying students

according to specific needs and characteristics has been construed to be and undertaken as a

precise measurement procedure, funding to service the educational needs of students tends to be

linked to specific diagnostic definitions. This has been problematic on several levels, not least of

which relates to the encouragement of a deficit paradigm and a construction of ‘learning

difficulties’ as resulting from a deficit in the internal capacity of individuals. Within the

Australian context, the labelling of students, the allocation of funding and funding expenditure at

the local level are often imprecisely linked and as a result there has not been the necessity for

extended debates about the definitions used for particular labels. There is evidence to suggest that

how the term ‘learning difficulties’ is specifically defined and the population that it relates to has

shifted across time and context, and continues to shift (Louden et al., 2000). Moreover, how the

term is employed at a school and classroom level is even more difficult to establish. The

processes by which students are identified as experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ are often

“submerged in the routine of teachers’ work and thoughts and frequently there is no call for

teachers to articulate them” (Carrier, 1990).

Broadly speaking though, assumptions of an internal deficit that is somehow intrinsic to an

individual are evident in the terms and definitions used for and around ‘learning difficulties’.

There is a notion that the ‘difficulty’ results from a “real, physical entity, which exists in the

heads of children, and requires accurate identification and treatment for remediation”

(Christensen & Baker, 2002). Such a definition has consequences for those students marked and

labelled as experiencing a ‘learning difficulty’. A psychological or medically based explanation

of why students are not learning as the school might expect, requires assessment, classification,

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and remediation of those students. Learning difficulties become ‘individual tragedies’

(Shakespeare, 1993) resulting from physical or psychological things that don’t work for students.

These traditional psychology-based perspectives have assumed that categories such as ‘students

experiencing learning difficulties’ work toward the best interests of the child. In contrast, social

explanations of the field have suggested that such categories may in fact serve the interests of

professionals and act as gate keeping devices for the institution of schooling (Dudley-Marling &

Murphy, 1997).

Over the past two decades or more – and in line with a move toward fore grounding social

practices as a basic unit of social life in much of the contemporary social theory influencing

education research – researchers from a range of perspectives have suggested the benefit of

viewing ‘learning difficulties’ and the social practices of identification, labelling, assessment and

remediation as socially embedded in the structures of schooling. These perspectives include

constructivist and socio-cultural perspectives (Carrier, 1990; McDermott, 1993; Poplin, 1995),

ethnomethodological (Edwards, 1980; McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1991, 1993) and post structural or

socio critical perspectives (Dudley-Marling & Dippo, 1995; Dudley-Marling & Murphy, 1997;

Lesley, 2003). The move has been to engage with the construct of ‘learning difficulties’, and

other comparable terms, as fundamentally social rather than psychological in nature. So for

example McDermott (1993) has argued that ‘learning difficulties’ as a concept is actually

sustained through the very “social practice of displaying, noticing, documenting, remediating and

explaining it”.

However despite the critiques levelled at the more traditional approaches to the field of ‘learning

difficulties’, the practices of identifying, assessing and treating students experiencing learning

difficulties “have held fast to psychological models” (Christensen & Baker, 2002). These

practices encourage narrow definitions of literacy as a set of portable skills and a sense that ‘out

of context’ and ‘one-shot’ literacy and numeracy assessments are legitimate measures of students’

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competence in literacy and numeracy. The removal of children identified as experiencing

difficulties with literacy and numeracy learning to be ‘topped- up’ in remedial programs remains

unproblematised as the best solution for all in such a context. The case study of one state’s

approach to providing for this group of students, which is developed later in this paper,

demonstrates the how these ways of understanding how students come to be experiencing

difficulties in learning literacy are still available as potentials for systems, schools and teachers.

Queensland’s use of three primary intervention strategies, all of which call heavily on practices

such as removal from mainstream, is a case in point of how psychological explanations continue

to inform practices in this area.

Social perspectives on students experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ do not suggest that school

failure does not exist, or that all children learn at the same rate or in the same ways. However

there is a potential for the ‘individual’ as such to be lost within this social perspective. This loss

of the individual in the social is a critique levelled at the perspective from more traditional

psychological perspectives but more recently also from those working within critical geography

(Butler & Parr, 1999). Students learn at different rates and in different ways. An important

consideration in any study of student achievement and ‘learning difficulties’ is to ensure that

populations of students are not constructed as homogenous through a focus on the social aspects

of learning and disadvantage. There is then a need to recognise the “lived experiences of mind

and body differences” that affect school learning as well as “social constructions of such states”

of being (Parr & Butler, 1999). Working from this position, it is possible to acknowledge that

‘learning difficulties’ have been constructed by particular understandings, founded in medical or

psychological explanations of what constitutes learning, achievement and competence in school-

based literacy and numeracy learning. At the same time it is possible to take account of different

learning experiences – including access to quality teaching and instruction – and the physical and

cognitive characteristics of individuals.

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In relation to this larger, more complex picture of how ‘learning difficulties’ come to be so

defined, a recently published OECD (2004) report is worthy of mention. The report represents a

most recent attempt to achieve greater definitional clarity within the field, while maintaining a

broad focus on literacy, numeracy and ‘learning difficulties’ as terms. It identifies current

practices in 28 developed countries pertaining to what has been called ‘Special Needs’ education.

Countries were asked to report in terms of three categories. Category A

refers to those students whose special needs appear to stem from a clear biological

impairment such as deafness… Category C comprises those whose difficulties stem more

apparently from social disadvantage of one sort or another and … Category B covers those

who fit clearly neither … Category A or C.

(OECD, 2004)

The report claims that “countries seemed to have little difficulty in using this framework” (p. 35).

However the field of ‘learning difficulties’ still remains as a field of disparate classification and

some confusion in relation to which students are being discussed under the umbrella term and

what equitable provision might entail for this group of students. The classification work done by

the OECD report has accord with our own attempts within this paper to demonstrate that policy,

research and practice engage with classification frames, categories and individuals with distinct

sets of practices and understandings when viewed at different systemic levels. It follows then that

we proceed within the subsequent sections of this review to first investigate policy and research at

a national level and to follow with an investigation of the enactment of this policy and research

agenda at a state level. Finally, using Queensland as a case in point, we map how this policy and

research is configured as provision within schools and review the research foundations of the

approaches that combine as provision of literacy and numeracy instruction for students identified

as experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ in Queensland.

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Policy: Systemic influence

Australia has a complicated system of government responsibility for school education. State-

funded education is provided by six state governments and two territory governments. Australian

Government resources are passed to these governments, who control the use of this money and

who have the responsibility for policy, curriculum and physical provision of state funded school

systems. Consequently federal policy related to education is usually in the form of guidelines or

initiatives. Further federal control of state funded education is generally established by tying

provision of Australian Government funds to the achievement of particular goals by state and

territory governments.

For this review, the nature of this funding arrangement means that the policy which impacts on

the provision of effective literacy and numeracy teaching to students identified as experiencing

‘learning difficulties’ must be investigated at the policy, research and practice interface. So we

begin by investigating national level policy, guidelines and research reports. We include a review

of those documents from the Australian Government departments involved in education, as well

as the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MEECTYA)

which comprises all National, State and Territory Ministers of Education (and associated

portfolios). This group has the responsibility of co-ordinating policy related to education across

pre primary to post secondary years at a national level. We then move to review of the policy that

relates to the Queensland State Government’s provision of effective literacy and numeracy

teaching for students identified as experiencing learning difficulties. As one of eight state or

territory governments, Queensland is used within this review as a case in point of how Australian

federal policy is configured within state-based provision of education. Finally, using Queensland

as a system example, we investigate what shape policy statements and guidelines take when

enacted within a school system.

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Official Australian Government Policy and Research

As previously mentioned, within Australia there has been no prescribed national curriculum to

guide schools, though at the time of writing this paper, National Statements of Learning in

English, Mathematics, Science and Civics and Citizenship are being progressed as part of the

national Consistency of Curriculum Outcomes Project. This work builds on earlier developments

including the State, Territory and Australian Government Ministers of Education agreement to

address common areas of concern through a declaration of National Goals of Schooling

(Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 1999a). The basic

assumption at the foundation of these National Gaols (The Adelaide Declaration) is that

every student should be numerate, able to read, write and spell and communicate at an

appropriate level.

(Ministerial Council on Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 1999a)

The Adelaide Declaration calls on the concept of social justice to discuss schools’ responsibility

to service the needs of all students. The declaration calls for schooling to be socially just so that

“students’ outcomes from schooling are free from the effects of negative forms of discrimination

based on sex, language, culture and ethnicity, religion or disability, and the differences arising

from students’ socio economic background or geographic location” (Ministerial Council on

Education Employment Training and Youth Affairs, 1999a).

As a way toward supporting the achievement of the National Goals, MCEETYA endorsed the

national Literacy and Numeracy Plan (Plan) (Ministerial Council on Education Employment

Training and Youth Affairs, 1999b). The Plan attempts to engage with and dispel any expectation

that a proportion of students in schools will always have significantly lower achievement in

literacy and numeracy than their peers. While calling for a co-ordinated approach to improving

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literacy and numeracy standards across all Australian schooling systems, the Plan has taken a

targeted focus on how this might be achieved. It does not engage with structures, curriculum or

pedagogy, focussing instead on assessment and accountability.

Key elements of the Plan include: the development of national benchmarks using state-based tests

(Luke, Woods et al., 2002); comprehensive assessment ‘as early as possible’ to identify students

‘at-risk’ of failing; and provision of early intervention. In this way the Plan works toward

providing assessment data to inform schools and teachers about intervention needs at key

junctures of schooling. A recognised limitation of the Plan, is that it can be construed as

promoting the idea that a complex concept such as literacy can be captured within a one-shot

paper and pencil test. It could also be said to have a narrowing effect on understandings about

what counts as valued literate capabilities in schooling, with literacy taken to be a commodity, a

set of technicist reading and writing skills, that if found ‘missing’ from a child can be provided by

an intervention program. One possible side effect of the Plan could be a reinforcing of the notion

that deficits belong to students and more broadly, even to schools. Wyatt-Smith (2000) found that

this was a concern expressed by some teachers when they were asked to discuss this issue. The

Plan has been used as a set of guidelines to develop nationally agreed indicators of achievement

that relate to students in Years 3, 5 and 7, and state-based systemic testing programs under the

banner of greater accountability. To its credit, the Plan prioritised teacher professional

development within its recommendations. However, it is only very recently that some Australian

Government funding has been allocated to capacity building in the areas of literacy and numeracy

assessment (Czislowski-McKenna, 2005).

Under the auspices of the Adelaide Declaration and the National Literacy and Numeracy Plan, the

Australian Government has funded several large research projects in the area of literacy and

numeracy development, and more specifically for this review, in the area of effective practices for

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assisting students not achieving in schools. ‘Mapping the Territory’ (Louden et al., 2000) is one

such project. It was commissioned to investigate the provision of services for supporting students

in literacy and numeracy learning within regular school settings. The report investigated nine key

issues, these being:

• Definitions

• Identification

• Prevalence

• Programs and strategies

• Funding

• Preparation of staff

• Use of private providers

• Program evaluation and

• Reporting of performance.

Utilising a multi-layered approach to methodology, the research team attempted to provide a

national overview as well as focused local perspective investigations. Based primarily on self-

reporting in interviews and a large-scale school survey, the study also involved case study data

being collected within twenty schools across school systems and locations. A key finding of the

research of significance for this review was that despite there being some evidence of high quality

programs and provisions in the schools studied there remained an unevenness of good practice

within and across systems and schools.

A companion study to ‘Mapping the Territory’ also has relevance to this review and investigated

the provision of literacy and numeracy pedagogy to students with disabilities. Calling on

document searches and analysis, literature reviews, surveys and case studies, ‘Literacy, Numeracy

and Students with Disabilities’ (C van Kraayenoord, Elkins, Palmer, & Rickards, 2000) marked

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the first investigation into literacy and numeracy specifically with this target group. The study

was charged with:

• Identifying the programs and strategies provided by education systems and sectors

• Critically reviewing the literature in the field

• Describing how literacy and numeracy are acquired and developed by students with

disabilities and

• Mapping the tertiary education programs and inservice professional development

provision for educators working in this area.

This research project also uncovered a variable terrain of provision and service for the target

group. Akin to the Louden et al. (2000) findings in relation to the provision for students

experiencing learning difficulties, van Kraayenoord et al. (2000) reported shifting definitions for

the term ‘disabilities’ from system to system and sector to sector. Compounding this, and

compounded by this, was a lack of uniformity in how students were identified as experiencing a

disability. Further there was an identified variability across sectors and systems in the match

between ‘type’ of disability and related funding support. The research team also commented on

the variation of program or provision efficacy across systems and sectors.

The van Kraayenoord et al. project (2000) made a strong statement about the heterogeneity of the

population who are eventually identified as being ‘students with disabilities’. Students with a

disability are as alike and as unalike to other students identified as such, as they are to students

without identified disabilities. The consequences of homogenising this group under the one label

seem to be significant for resource provision and programming for support. This finding clearly

has implications for service provision for the group being discussed within this review also.

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Although not restricted to in students experiencing ‘learning difficulties’, a key report on the

middle years of schooling ‘Beyond the Middle’ (Luke, Elkins et al., 2002) reviews the literature

on literacy ‘problems’ in the middle years and makes several recommendations about effective

middle years literacy strategies. Luke et al. (2002) describe the field of middle years literacy

instruction as one ill-equipped to cope with an increasingly diverse range of students, many of

whom remain as ‘casualties’ of early literacy remediation. While the investigation detailed

substantial investments, and some successes in improving the achievement levels of particular

target groups of students, a recurring theme was that one approach, one program, would not solve

all literacy problems in all contexts and for all populations.

This theme has relevance for any investigation into the efficacy of literacy and numeracy teaching

and learning for students experiencing a learning difficulty. One approach, one program to service

the needs of all students in Australian schools, will not be found. Rather, approaches that take

account of the specific local synergies and enabling combinations of the diverse activities,

literacies, backgrounds and futures of students are required. It is unlikely that such an approach

will result from a national systemic testing program. Australian Government funded research has

taken a broad perspective to the areas of concern, and the recommendations made support

inclusive approaches to servicing the needs of all students. However at a policy level, national

initiatives seem to prioritise accountability measures, even though it is widely recognised that

such measures, of themselves, will not secure improvement for all. The concern with literacy and

numeracy benchmarks as minimum standards, while focusing attention on students at risk of not

making satisfactory progress, has not been accompanied by a complementary concern with

teacher judgment, and more generally, conditions for teaching and learning as important factors in

improving standards. At this point we turn our attention to considering Queensland as an instance

of how provision is made at a state level.

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Policy: A case study of one State’s approach

The 1990s was a decade of reform and renewal for Queensland state education. Several of the

initiatives within this decade remain as integral parts of Queensland’s approach to literacy and

numeracy teaching and to the teaching of students identified as having learning difficulties. The

Year 2 Diagnostic Net (Education Queensland, 1995) that is used to identify students having

difficulties learning literacy and numeracy is one such initiative. The Social Justice Strategy

(1994-1998) (Department of Education, 1994) also still stands within many schools as a

document at the foundation of school planning and programming.

The Queensland approach to state education entered the new century with several positive

elements at a policy level which were available to be used as a foundation for improving the

efficacy of teaching students who were experiencing a learning difficulty. These include the fact

that a decade of calling on social justice language within policy had created a commitment to

social justice and diversity that permeated a broad range of policy; the State had recently released

the findings of a large scale longitudinal study (Education Queensland, 2001) that configured a

refocus on productive pedagogies for all students; and the State had recently reaffirmed its

commitment to inclusive education. While in practice this commitment had been, and continues

to be, variable, Education Queensland policy has the potential to support an inclusive education

environment that is effective in providing equitable access to literacy and numeracy for students

experiencing a learning difficulty.

All education policy in Queensland is enacted through the Queensland Government’s policy

statement ‘Queensland State Education 2010’ (Education Queensland, 2000b). The State’s

approach to curriculum is detailed within Years 1-10 Curriculum Framework (The State of

Queensland, 2001) or, for a small minority of trial schools, the New Basics Framework

(Education Queensland, 2000a). All three of these documents support the principles of inclusion

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and support the creation of a “flexible education response to the needs of students” that “places a

premium on diversity, flexibility, and building the social capital of communities (The State of

Queensland, 2001). Education Queensland policy that directly relates to providing education for

students with learning difficulties and learning disabilities (CS-13 Department of Education

Manual) claims that all students need to work in a supportive and inclusive environment. So it

would seem that at a policy level, Education Queensland is well prepared to provide effective

literacy teaching and learning to students experiencing learning difficulties. However several

recent reviews of curriculum and schooling (Education Queensland, 2001; Luke, Woods et al.,

2002; The State of Queensland, 2000) have suggested that when this policy is enacted, especially

when it is done within an environment dealing with the accountability-driven initiatives of

Australian Government policy, an inclusive system may be difficult to realise in practice.

In 2000, Education Queensland undertook a broad review of literacy in Queensland schools. The

Literate Futures review (The State of Queensland, 2000) marked the most recent review of state

education in Queensland. Based on data collected primarily through focus group meetings and

community consultations, Literate Futures suggested that there was evidence in the Queensland

system of a need to reframe literacy within schools, and to question the continued substantial

investment in augmenting intervention programs without a review of their efficacy. The review

suggested a focus on professional development and whole-school planning toward ‘balanced’ and

futures-oriented approaches to literacy, using the ‘four resources’ model (Freebody & Luke,

1990) as a framework for planning, curriculum and assessment. However, the urgent need to

assess the efficacy of the range of augmenting programs’ provision of support for literacy

outcomes in schools was also noted. This call remains unfulfilled.

More recently the Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education (students with disabilities) has

released its final report (Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education, 2004). While this taskforce

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dealt specifically with students with disabilities, it has relevance for the provision of effective

teaching and learning for students more widely and especially for the population of interest for

this review – and this relevance is evident in the broad definition of inclusion taken within the

report. Taking the definition originally agreed upon at the Summit on Inclusive Education (29-31

May 2002) the report defines the concept as

a process of responding to the uniqueness of individuals, increasing: their presence,

access, participation and achievement in a learning society.

(Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education, 2004)

The report and the ensuing Minister’s statement have the potential to refocus the system’s

approach to dealing with providing an inclusive education for all students. To date the system in

Queensland has been successful at working within the standards frame of Australian Government

policy and maintaining a strong focus on inclusion within policy. However, once this policy is

enacted as the everyday practices of providing for students experiencing learning difficulties the

system has retreated to a position where assessing, labelling and categorising can take precedence

over effective provision and which relies on a complicated network of resource allocation and an

ever increasing number of augmenting programs.

Reviewing the Queensland Model: Provision as enacted practice

In the recent Ministerial Taskforce report the following observation was made about

Queensland’s schooling system:

While there is much to commend Queensland schools in their willingness to respond to

the needs of each student, some organisational structures, and core beliefs and practices

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remain to hinder the provision of quality curriculum and pedagogy for students with

diverse needs.

(Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education, 2004)

The State’s approach to servicing the needs of students identified as experiencing learning

difficulties remains as one such set of practices, able to hinder the good intentions of a system and

those that work within it. Rather than a co-ordinated approach to provision of efficient literacy

and numeracy teaching and learning for all students, the system is presently a combination of

augmenting programs for particular target groups. We have chosen to frame this section, which

ultimately investigates the research base available to support each of the major approaches taken

up within Queensland State Schools, according to the service models and school based staff roles.

This categorising frame is justified because, while the activities and programs implemented by

these individuals may demonstrate a high level of variation and irregularity, the roles, the levels

of training of those who take them up, and how the roles are resourced, while not without

diversity, are consistent across many schools.

As mentioned above, any review or investigation into providing literacy instruction for students

experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ in Queensland necessarily sits within the broad policy

foundations of ‘Queensland State Education 2010’ (Education Queensland, 2000b) and ‘Literate

Futures’ (The State of Queensland, 2000). The latter report did not make any recommendations

based on an appraisal of the efficacy of systemic initiatives aimed at providing appropriate

intervention to students identified as experiencing ‘learning difficulties’ because this appraisal

was outside the scope of the review. However the report did identify the intervention provided by

the three roles of Reading Recovery teacher, support teacher learning difficulties, and teacher aide

as being primary in the present model of provision of literacy support for students experiencing

learning difficulties in Queensland schools.

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Other paid and volunteer workers are also part of the complex map of individuals who engage

with this group of students. Parents and volunteers are used extensively in many schools. Key

Teachers, a remnant from mid 1990 reforms, are also still utilised to provide intervention in some

schools, although the funding for these roles has been minimal in recent years. Further support is

provided through the services of a large staff of transient specialist teachers and allied health

professionals, who attend to particular students in order to service particular needs (for example

speech pathologists). However this review has been limited to an investigation of the research

base of each of the three primary roles identified above.

The research base available on the three intervention strategies is varied in extent. While there is a

body of research available that both supports and opposes the claims of the Reading Recovery

program for example, the same can most definitely not be said for teacher aide literacy support.

What is evident in relation to all three intervention strategies is that research, within the

Queensland context, that is able to provide information on issues of efficacy and ‘value-

addedness’ of literacy intervention - particularly for comparison purposes is not currently

available. Importantly, there is little research available on the effectiveness of intervention aimed

at improving numeracy outcomes for students identified as experiencing learning difficulties, for

this reason we have focused here on the research base available on the effectiveness of literacy

intervention. The implication of these issues more broadly is that policy related to the

effectiveness and value-addedness of intervention for students identified as experiencing learning

difficulties cannot be informed by a solid research base.

The intervention that is provided by Teacher Aides within Queensland schools is varied and

unquantified. In some instances, Teacher Aides work closely with classroom or support teachers

assisting the implementation of a classroom based literacy program. In other instances teacher

aides may use an Education Queensland -developed resource such as Support-a-Reader

20

(Education Queensland, 1991) or a commercial intervention program such as Jolly Phonics (Jolly

Learning). Students may be assisted within the classroom, or withdrawn individually or in groups

to be instructed in a fashion alternative to the mainstream classroom curriculum. Queensland is

presently moving toward an accreditation process for teacher aides (see

hhtp://education.qld.gov.au/learning_ent/ldf/pst/taide/classification.html for further details), as

are other systems within Australia (Castle & Bett, 1996). However, the landscape of what teacher

aide work might involve is extensive, with the levels of supervision and the support provided to

particular personnel being varied. Further, appropriate evaluation of the efficacy of the

intervention methods, models and programs that teacher aides are involved with is scant (Webster

Hypatia, 1993).

Characterised by greater variety and fewer programmatic constraints than the Reading Recovery

program, is the intervention (learning support) provided by those classified as support teachers:

learning difficulties in Queensland. This support cannot be classified as a program in the same

sense as Reading Recovery. What learning support involves tends to be organised at a school

level on the basis of training, district support, local needs and the beliefs and assumptions held by

individual support teachers, administrators and classroom teachers within a school. Learning

support has traditionally involved the withdrawal of groups of children from the classroom

program, but may have other components ranging from in-class support to professional

development for classroom teachers.

Forlin (2001) suggests that the continued move toward inclusive education systems, has impacted

on the role of support teachers across systems internationally, resulting in transformations of their

roles and responsibilities. So, while traditionally this form of support has been characterised by

student withdrawal from class, usually in groups, the support teacher is now increasingly seen as

a provider of guidance and advice to teachers as much as to students, as systems advocate a more

21

collaborative approach to addressing student learning needs. Approaches to pedagogy and

curriculum within learning support have also become issues for review and transformation in

recent times. As an example, there is presently an unresolved debate about both the effectiveness

of one-to-one tutoring as opposed to group tutoring (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 2000;

Hurry, 2000; Pinnell, Lyons, Deford, Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994) and the effectiveness of withdrawal

or ‘pull-out’ programs as opposed to expert assistance and intervention within, and as part of,

mainstream pedagogy (Addison Stone, 1998; Moody, Vaughn, Hughes, & Fischer, 2001; Ostoja,

1996; Rea, McLaughlin, & Walther-Thomas, 2002; Tancock, 1997; Christa van Kraayenoord,

1996). An overall understanding of how these debates and shifts in thinking have impacted on the

role of support teachers within the Queensland context of state education is limited due to

minimal investigation, and thus understanding, of what learning support entails at a school level.

Finally, the Reading Recovery program (Clay, 1993b) is conducted by Reading Recovery

teachers trained by district Reading Recovery tutors and supervised by state trainers. Based in a

cognitive acquisition theory of reading theorised by Clay (1991), Reading Recovery involves

daily, individualised instruction of students. To receive this instruction, the child is removed from

the classroom and instructed in a quiet space. While Reading Recovery continues to receive

financial support at a systemic level, and in many cases at school and classroom level, it is a

program that has experienced increasing criticism from outside.

Reading Recovery operates as a systemic early literacy program, providing thirty minutes of daily

individual instruction for the ‘lowest literacy achievers’ in a Year 2 cohort, as determined by

students’ scores on Clay’s observation survey (Clay, 1993a). Children must be within the ages of

6 years and 7.2 years, and are usually in their second year of full time schooling to be eligible for

the program within the Queensland system, although these limiters differ across other systems.

Reading Recovery is based on the belief that the development of an effective cognitive processing

22

system will allow children who are experiencing difficulties in literacy learning to develop

strategic control of reading and writing processes. Clay (1993b) argues that students will continue

to develop in literacy through engagement in classroom learning once they have a self-extending

system, which she describes as “a set of operations just adequate for reading a slightly more

difficult text for the precise words and meaning of the author” (Clay, 1993b). The program is

based on the premise that classroom literacy instruction will continue while the child is on the

program. Instruction must be individual and Reading Recovery teachers will have been

“appropriately trained” so as to “be able to deliver instruction within the framework” of Clay’s

theory (Clay, 1993b).

While there is a proliferation of research investigating the Reading Recovery program and its

effectiveness, long term benefits of the program have been questioned (Hiebert, 1994; Slavin &

Fashola, 1998), as have any immediate benefits outside the Reading Recovery setting (Groves,

1994). There is little research in the field that has managed to go beyond the usual research

question of whether the program improves children’s literacy levels as defined by the program’s

own assessment techniques. Despite the continued support of those involved in the program, a

review of the research suggests that the evidence is ambiguous within the range of studies that

have compared the efficacy of Reading Recovery and other intervention programs (Center,

Freeman, & Robertson, 1996; Pikulski, 1994; Pinnell et al., 1994; Rasinski, 1995; Ross, Smith,

Casey, & Slavin, 1995; Smith, 1994; Spiegel, 1995), or that have compared students’ pre-

program and post-program literacy levels (Clay, 1993b; Rowe, 1997; Trethowan, Harvey, &

Fraser, 1996). Overviews of this body of research are available (Hiebert, 1994; Hurry, 2000;

Shannon & Barr, 1995; The State of Queensland, 2000). Also, criticisms of the program have

investigated a concern that the program’s link to developing phonemic awareness is not grounded

in current beliefs about students’ literacy development - as evidenced in the work of New Zealand

23

educators Tunmer and Chapman (Chapman & Tunmer, 1991; Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow,

1999; Chapman, Tunmer, & Prochnow, 2001) and Morris, Tyner and Perney (2000).

In addition, the program has come under attack for issues related to context and effectiveness.

These critiques have focussed on both students - particularly in relation to specific target groups -

and teachers. Concerns about the program limiting the literacy repertoire of students have been

expressed by Lankshear and Knobel (1998) and Tancock (1997). Questions have also been raised

about the program’s ability to service the lowest achievers in literacy after approximately one

year in school, despite the fact that this is the population that the program is designed to provide

assistance for (Elbaum et al., 2000; Phillips & Smith, 1997). Finally, while support for the

program is often based on the fact that the program is delivered by a trained, closely supervised

teacher within a one-to-one context, there have recently been claims that this method and the

ensuing teacher training required to sustain it may not be cost effective and may be restrictive of

teacher decision making and professional development (Barnes, 1997; Snow, Burns, & Griffith,

1998; Woods & Henderson, 2002).

Queensland statewide data for the Reading Recovery program provides details of the number of

children serviced and the success of this provision, and has been collected annually from schools

since 1997. This data is collated at a systemic level and reported through districts to schools and

teachers. Reading Recovery teachers also collate data at a school level and present this annually

as part of a School Report for Reading Recovery. However, to date there has been no published

external review of the program within the Queensland system. Further, follow-up data about the

literacy achievement of Reading Recovery students after the program, or about the subsequent

intervention programs that they are related to, has not been published to date, though the facility

for this exists.

24

The three intervention strategies considered to this point are different in many respects. Despite

this, the programs can be seen to work toward the same outcome. The result of each is that

literacy is packaged as an individual achievement. It is a finite skill which is portable and

personally owned by individual children. School literacy failure is portrayed by the system’s

current approaches to intervention as failure of individual students. Classroom pedagogy is thus

not implicated in the main, but instead stands as natural and ‘normal’ beside special children who

require special consideration. As Dudley-Marling and Murphy (1997) discuss, intervention

programs function to preserve the status quo by working to protect the structures of schooling and

classroom pedagogy from public and systemic criticism.

Conclusion

In this paper we have reviewed the field of provision of educational services to students identified

as experiencing learning difficulties. This review has been placed at the nexus of policy, research

and practice. After troubling the definition practices in this field, we detailed policy and research

at a national level within Australia, and followed this by a discussion of one State’s approach to

systemic policy in order to investigate the implications of national and state agendas on provision

of educational services. Once the current model used within Queensland had been mapped, we

reviewed the research base of each of three primary intervention strategies for students identified

as experiencing learning difficulties and provided by teacher aides, support teachers learning

difficulties and Reading Recovery teachers. The research base for these intervention programs

and models was identified as being variable in quantity and coverage of issues. We are aware that

this variability has meant that the level of review of each of these approaches is imbalanced

within this paper. However rather than apologising for this imbalance, we believe that it justifies a

further call for balanced research on provision of educational services to students identified as

experiencing learning difficulties within Queensland. The link, at both a national and state level,

25

between policy and research is precarious at this moment. There is a need for a balanced research

agenda into the efficacy and value-addedness of intervention models and approaches to

intervention within Queensland’s system. However any such agenda must also account for a need

to trouble intervention being perceived as our only solution to equitable provision.

We are conscious that within this review, the concept of numeracy has not been dealt with in the

same way as literacy. Research into numeracy intervention as it is delivered within the

Queensland context is scarce, and this silence is in itself relevant. Also of interest is the fact that,

at least in the Queensland context, there is a relative imbalance in literacy and numeracy support

provision within schools. Our point is that numeracy is an area where policy and practice are in

need of urgent attention, with concerted work also needed in implementing literacy and numeracy

across the curriculum and across the years of schooling.

Current Australian policy in relation to students experiencing learning difficulties in literacy and

numeracy does suggest an approach that should enable equitable access to effective literacy and

numeracy teaching for all. The alignment of equity with accountability discourses however,

constrains the realisation of these ideals within education systems in Australia. A general trend to

the ‘minimum’, has limited the enactment of equitable, socially just initiatives and uncovers

tensions between the ideals of policy and the initiatives of its realisation. Added to this minimum

trend, is an add-on approach which results in schools offering a range of augmenting programs

which seem to work within the school space as autonomous entities. This narrow framework

constrains schools in their ability to represent students experiencing learning difficulties in

particular ways, and in turn limits the realisation of flexible whole school approaches to literacy

and numeracy teaching and learning. When viewed against a backdrop of policies that emphasise

school / community partnerships, and the importance of parental involvement in their children’s

learning, an expanded view of whole school literacy and numeracy seems appropriate.

26

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