LITERACY. OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY

A WESTERN Sydney public school has jumped 104 positions in Higher School Certificate rankings after focusing on improving literacy skills.
Homebush Boys High, a comprehensive school, leapt from 206 to 102 in the Herald school rankings, based on the proportion of students who scored 90 and above in an HSC subject. (SMH 16.12.2010)
I've been boring people with this for years so why should you escape. Boosting kids literacy skills has a flow on effect across all curriculum areas and that's not to mention classroom BEHAVIOUR.
We've known for many years that kids (especially boys) who have poor literacy skills try to mask the fact by disengaging, claiming that the subject matter is stupid, being disruptive and generally stopping themselves and others from learning. It's certainly been proved in the last three schools I've had. Lift literacy scores and the rates of suspensions, time outs, detentions etc. goes down in line with the rate of Literacy growth. Beautiful graphs.
If Homebush Boys High can do it with high school kids how much better can it be if the kids are helped before they hit puberty with all its complications.
At one central coast school we set out to have no kids in the bottom band in the Basic Skills Test of Literacy in Year 3. Previously they had been waiting until Year 3 to try to fix problems, thus (they thought) ensuring that the growth figures from Year 3 to Year 4 were strong. We took the kids who had not made the grade standard in Kindergarten and ran an explicit phonemic awareness program, with additional staffing from within the school budget. The program ran for an hour every morning five days a week. The second year we extended it to include Years 1 and 2. The school had no additional funding for the program and it is not a school that attracts extra funding due to socio-economic or other factors. Just an ordinary school. The year after I left the kids who were in the fiorst Year 1 sat for the Year 3 NAPLAN (which replaced the BST) tests. The target was met, no one in the bottom band. Most importantly the growth figures that year and in the subsequent two years have continued to rise.
Once the kids had the skills and the confidence the results just keep going up.
So the earlier we address the problem the better the results and not just for the following year, if we keep at it they do better and better.
That a high school has managed it is truly worthy of admiration.