00:00All students will learn this new approach, a blanket approach, across all government
00:06schools from next year and essentially they'll be taught to read using the synthetic phonics
00:13approach and they'll be given a minimum of 25 minutes daily explicit teaching of this
00:19new method.
00:20Right now many students are taught to read under the balanced literacy model, which as
00:25part of that learning process essentially gets students to guess words and sounds based
00:30on pictures and other prompts, whereas phonics is teaching children the sounds of the English
00:34language and the letter combinations that make them.
00:38It's more of a direct teaching approach and at the moment principals of all state schools,
00:44it's at their discretion which method is taught to children.
00:48This method, or this new announcement, will bring all government schools under the same
00:53method.
00:54The government made this announcement today and said that it is based on research which
00:59has been done here in Australia and internationally, which is all pointing towards this phonics
01:04method being the best way to teach children to read.
01:08The Education Minister, Ben Carroll, spoke to the ABC this morning.
01:12He says that the research is showing that children who are taught under this method,
01:16the phonics method, are two years ahead of their peers.
01:19Take a listen to what he had to say a short time ago.
01:22We're teaching children at the moment how to guess words and all the evidence shows
01:28we need to show them how to spell out the words and really read them from the beginning.
01:35From 2025 it's a significant policy change.
01:38It will require lots of change in schools, particularly the schools that have implemented
01:46already the balanced literacy model.
01:49It will require teachers to change the way that they are teaching students to read and
01:55no doubt from today this policy announcement will spark significant discussion today, in
02:02the coming weeks, in the coming years, about the best way to teach children to read.
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