Learning to read English: what can we learn from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are doing well?

Abstract

Governments across Australia are keen to close the education gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. Parents and carers of Indigenous children want their children to have a good education, as indicated by responses in waves 1 and 2 of Footprints in Time. Many of the Indigenous children in Footprints in Time are doing well, have strong vocabularies and are successfully learning to read. What can we learn from those who are doing well to help those who are experiencing difficulties? What helps children get a good education? In wave 4 the older cohort, children in Footprints in Time (aged 7-9) completed a reading assessment achieving a wide range of scores. This presentation will examine the link between a variety of characteristics of the children and their families on their wave 4 reading scores. The analysis will build on existing findings such as the importance of reading to children and parental education and explore other ways that parents and carers of Indigenous children support their children's learning. Of specific interest is how strongly outcomes and activities recorded in earlier waves help explain the wave 4 reading assessment scores, compared to the impact of contemporary activities and characteristics. There are important policy implications for the design of Indigenous early childhood education programs depending on whether early outcomes from a very young age appear to be persistent over time or whether children are shown to be more responsive to current activities and interventions.