UQ Literacy Programs:
Reading, Spelling, Writing, Phonological Awareness
History of Literacy Interventions in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Speech Pathologists have always had an intense interest in phonological (speech sound) development in children, and in ways of addressing phonological delay in children with speech difficulties. Speech pathology researchers noted that these children often went on to have difficulties acquiring literacy skills. As a result, researchers began to look at the links between phonological awareness and literacy acquisition, and how this knowledge could contribute to literacy intervention programmes.
Phonological Awareness (PA) is the conscious awareness of the different sound units in words, which allows one to learn to break words up into sounds (sh-o-p) and substitute sounds in words to make new words (swap /p/ in ‘shop’ for /d/ = ‘shod’). Phonological awareness skills develop in a typical pattern, which includes the following steps:
Acquired prior to school (4-5 years)
- Remember, detect and generate rhyme
- Break up words into syllables (ham - bur - ger)
- Begin to break up words into ‘onset’ (consonants preceding the vowel) and ‘rime’ (vowel and following consonants) (e.g., b – ag, dr – ink).
The development of these PA skills before school entry allows students to benefit from the phonics and reading/spelling instruction they receive at school. This in turn further develops their PA skills.
Acquired at school age (6 yrs +)
- Break up words into their individual sounds (shelf = sh - e - l – f, which is important for spelling)
- Blend sounds together (ch - ir - p = chirp, which is important for reading)
- Addition, deletion, and manipulation of sounds within words to make new words (what happens when you take /l/ from flame, which is important for reading and spelling)
The development of these skills allows a student to move confidently into literacy. They can access many more words, and start to analyse words at the syllable level. Using their PA skills, they can develop their reading and spelling of new words independently.
As early as 1993, speech pathologists Professor Barbara Dodd and Gail Gillon were researching children’s literacy acquisition in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. They extended previous research on the link between PA and reading skills and the contribution of intensive PA training on reading measures. They conducted a 12 hour programme for students aged 10 to 13 with moderate reading difficulties (reading age two years behind chronological age). The results indicated that the students attending the 12 hour programme improved on average by 13 months for reading accuracy, and 17 months for comprehension when tested with the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. A 20 hour programme which added multi-syllabic instruction was also trialled (Gillon & Dodd, 1997). At the completion of the 10 week programme, students were post tested on the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability. The 20 hour group had made an average improvement of 24 months for reading accuracy and 44 months for reading comprehension.
Between 1995 and 2000, speech pathologists at the University of Queensland’s Health and Rehabilitation Clinics continued to deliver the therapy, refining the tasks and developing a greater number of group activities. These additions to the therapy materials were edited into a programme that could be conducted by speech pathology students and trained learning support teachers and was first published as the UQPAL (Phonological Awareness for Literacy) at the beginning of 2000. UQ Speech Pathologists provided extensive training for teachers intending to implement the PAL program. Many teachers implemented PAL in their schools, but asked if UQ could develop an early intervention program.
Occupational Therapists have long provided assistance to children to develop gross and fine-motor skills including handwriting. By the time teachers were asking for an early intervention programme for phonological awareness, there was a strong recognition that many children with literacy difficulties have co-occurring reduced phonological awareness and sensory-motor difficulties. In 2000, occupational therapists and speech pathologists from SHRS began a successful collaboration to develop the Early Literacy Foundations (ELF) programme. ELF is an early intervention literacy program designed for year 1 and 2 students, with a lot of motor skills and handwriting instruction incorporated into the activities. ELF has proven very effective in Queensland schools, and many teachers have been trained in its use.
The added dimension of sensory motor content into ELF confirmed that many students with phonological or literacy difficulties also have co-occuring sensory motor difficulties. This provided the impetus for writing a second edition of the PAL, incorporating activities and instructions to address these sensory-motor issues. This second edition will be available later this year.
The ELF and PAL programs are now being used in approximately 720 of Queensland’s primary schools. As both programmes are copyright to the University of Queensland, the income derived from these programmes is channelled back into the School’s literacy clinics, conducted on site since 1995. The University of Sydney and La Trobe University speech pathology clinics purchased our training, and also the programmes to conduct within their clinics.
History of Training in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
As early as 1998, therapists from the School’s UQ Health and Rehabilitation Clinics have been conducting professional development for teachers using the programs, and incorporating the content into classroom activities. This has included principals, learning support teachers, teachers, teacher aides, speech pathologists and occupational therapists. Training focuses on the underlying theory, the skills required to run the programmes as isolated events and the skills to incorporate the principles flexibly into both the curriculum and classroom teaching for maximum benefit.