00:06The day starts a little differently at Jiddy Jiddy School, with a yarning circle to calm
00:10the students before a rigorous phonics class.
00:13Can you say author?
00:15Author!
00:16Four years ago, the school completely changed its teaching style because a majority of kids
00:21were entering high school reading at year two level.
00:24We are now closing the gap, which is what we set out to do, and we can see it.
00:29And our school celebrates that.
00:32Unplugged, untrue, unfit.
00:34The school used Closing the Gap funding to retrain its teachers in Multi-Lit, a commercial explicit
00:40instruction reading program developed by Macquarie University researchers.
00:44The teaching practice distils lessons into bite-sized pieces that guide students through
00:49every step of learning to read.
00:51Today, almost every student graduates high school ready.
00:55So they're going to fit in better, they're not going to be behaviour problems, and they're
00:58going to keep going to university, I hope.
01:00Reading expert Professor Pamela Snow says every school in Australia should teach reading using
01:05similar explicit teaching methods.
01:08We shouldn't be leaving reading success to chance, it shouldn't matter what your postcode
01:13is.
01:13Professor Snow would like teaching practice to be publicly tracked.
01:17When we track closely what's happening, as we do in other fields like road safety and health,
01:24then we identify areas of strong performance.
01:29Jiddy Jiddy Jiddy is proud to be leading the way.
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