Literacy learning difficulties in Australian primary schools: who are the children identified and how do their schools and teachers support them?

Rohl, Mary ; Rivalland, Judith

Introduction

The National Literacy Plan outlined in Literacy for All (DEETYA 1998, p. 7) indicates that it is no longer accepted as inevitable that a significant proportion of students will not achieve literacy skills at the minimum level. The Plan sets the clear goal `that no child will be prevented from making progress in education at school because of inadequate competence in literacy' (DEETYA 1998, p. 17). To achieve this goal the National Plan focuses on the need for early identification of literacy difficulties, early intervention and other forms of support in order for all students to achieve successful literacy outcomes. It also recognises the difference in the student population across states, territories and systems; the diverse nature of schools and their communities; the differing needs of individual students; and the range of teaching and learning styles that can best serve a heterogeneous community.

In order to help schools cater for students whose progress could be impeded by limited literacy competence, the Mapping the Territory report (Louden et al. 2000) was commissioned by DETYA (now DEST). Its aim was to provide a national picture of how students with learning difficulties/disabilities are supported in their literacy and numeracy learning in regular school settings and to identify successful strategies for addressing the literacy and numeracy needs of these students. In meeting the project brief, the research team developed a template of key issues that included amongst others, identification and prevalence of learning difficulties and programs and strategies to support students with learning difficulties.

This paper is based on findings from the Mapping the Territory (1) study and a follow-up study Supporting Students with Learning Difficulties in a School of the Air (2) (Rivalland, Rohl & Smith 2001). We look briefly at issues surrounding the definition of learning difficulties, with particular reference to the Australian context, we provide a brief overview of the two studies, including methodologies, and we look in some detail at six students who were identified by their schools as having difficulty in learning literacy. In addition we examine what their schools were doing to support these students and draw some conclusions about how schools and teachers can effectively support the literacy learning of students who do not make expected progress.

Definitions: Learning difficulty or learning disability?

Defining and identifying those children who have difficulty in learning literacy is a vexed and confusing issue. Allington (2002) has described how in the United States, learning difficulties has been redefined as learning disabilities, for which there is no `commonly accepted definition' (p. 266). He explains this redefinition from a social constructivist perspective and attributes it to various factors within the US context, including the fact that identification of learning disability qualifies children for additional educational funding and excludes them from taking part in state education testing. It is therefore in the interests of schools who want to show improved performance in literacy for low achieving children to be identified.

Within the Australian context, where identification is not tied to funding or exclusion from state testing, the use of the terms learning difficulty and learning disability is quite different, but as we shall see, can still be confusing. Elkins (2002, this volume) has clarified the confusion at a general level as follows:

 In Australia the label learning disabilities is usually restricted to a
 small group of students with persistent problems, whereas learning
 difficulties describes the experience of a larger group of students who do
 not respond well to their classroom programs. (p. 11)

Nevertheless, the schools that took part in the Mapping the Territory project varied in the terms they used to describe students who were experiencing difficulty in literacy learning. In some cases individual staff members within one school used different terms. Not only did the terms used by schools and teachers differ, but even when schools used the same terms they sometimes included different groups of students in their definition. This became apparent as the researchers observed the individual children identified by the schools in the study. The schools identified a wide range of students who were experiencing difficulty in literacy. Some were of low general cognitive ability; some had behavioural problems often diagnosed as ADD/ADHD and some were from particular linguistic, cultural or family backgrounds. The difficulties of a small proportion of the identified students could have been seen as 'intrinsic to the individual and not a direct result of other conditions or influences', an essential component of many definitions of learning disability and most definitions of specific learning disability (Chan & Dally 2000).

It seems that in practice, within the Australian context as Elkins has described, `learning disability' is often used to refer to those students who may, or may not have taken part in intervention programs in the early years, but need ongoing support in later years of school. The students identified in the Mapping the Territory report who participated in intervention programs in the early years tended to fall into two groups: those who were slow to get started in formal learning, whose difficulties were considered to be transient; and those whose difficulties were more severe and likely to need long-term support, who might well be diagnosed at a later date as learning disabled.

Methodology

The Mapping the Territory study adopted a multiple method approach to research, attempting to provide both a comprehensive national overview and a close-up local view of the circumstances of individual children in particular school settings. To this end, five separate data collection strategies were developed: a literature review, mapping of sector and system provisions, surveys of pre-service and in-service education, a survey of school-level provision, and a set of school case studies. Together, these methods allowed for progressive focussing on issues.

The case studies used qualitative research methods to explore the focus issues. Twenty schools from New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia were chosen for participation in the study. School selection was guided by the belief that the case studies should each represent some aspect of excellence in their provision for children with learning difficulties. The case study schools were also selected to represent a cross-section of school sectors, locations, school sizes and socio-economic circumstances of parents. For ethical reasons, schools, teachers, parents and children were identified by code names and some identifying details were changed.

Data collection included interviews with teachers, school administrators and parents, analysis of school documents, and observations of individual children in classrooms and other contexts. Data were recorded in verbatim notes or transcripts of audio-tapes and written field-notes. In order to reduce the difficulty of cross-case analysis, each case study was presented in a common format. The first draft of each case study was reviewed by another member of the research team, revised and returned to schools in accordance with ethical requirements agreed by the researchers' universities and negotiated with individual schools. Further details of the methodology can be found in Louden (2000).

Since it was not possible to include a case study of a school in a remote location in the Mapping the Territory study, a group of researchers undertook the follow-up study Supporting Students with Learning Difficulties in a School of the Air (Rivalland, Rohl & Smith 2001). This study was informed by the methodology of the school case studies in Mapping the Territory. It took the form of a multi-layered case study of one School of the Air, which included amongst its staff a Support Officer Learning Difficulties.

In this paper we describe five children from the Mapping the Territory case study schools and one from Supporting Students with Learning Difficulties in a School of the Air. These children exemplify the heterogeneity of the group of children who were identified, usually by their schools, as having difficulty in learning literacy. We begin with two students near the end of their primary school years who had experienced literacy difficulties for some time. We then describe a Year 5 student who was experiencing difficulties in coping with the particular demands of a School of the Air and a Year 3 student for whom English was not a first language. Our other two students were experiencing some difficulties as they began formal schooling in Year 1.

The students

Owen, Year 6 (Nichols 2000)

Owen was a Year 6 student at a private school in which there was an intensive specialist program for students diagnosed as specific learning disabled/dyslexic. A serious boy who worked conscientiously in class, Owen was a competitive sports player and, according to his mother, thought of himself as a `champion'.

His parents became concerned about his educational progress, when by Year 2 he seemed unable to read simple books and was behind his classmates in literacy. Through the SPELD organisation they were referred to a psychologist. Owen was tested and diagnosed as dyslexic, with strengths in the areas of fine motor coordination and general intelligence. As a Year 2 student, Owen was not old enough to join the specialist program at his school and, as there was no formal early intervention withdrawal program, Owen's parents organised private tutoring for him, employing two tutors, one from SPELD, and one from the school to work individually with him. At the beginning of Year 3, Owen began the specialist program with a teacher who had been trained through the British Dyslexia Association in a structured phonics multisensory program.

Owen's classroom program included specific skills as well as integrated units of work. For spelling, students were regularly tested on list words they had spelled incorrectly in their written work. They were encouraged to use a range of strategies to learn spellings, such as `look-cover-write-check' and `say aloud, spell aloud'. Activities were based on the list of words, for example, `list them in alphabetical order', `place them in sentences'. When Owen produced an accurate piece of spelling work in his book, his teacher praised him lavishly with comments such as, `Owen you are a legend!' His spelling book showed that he was able to learn a list of words and reproduce it reasonably accurately within a short time-frame. However, he quite often mis-spelled the same words when tested on them later. Mis-spellings were generally due to letter pair reversals (`strated' for `started'), insertion of letters (honersty'), or deletion of letters (`patent' for `patient').

His writing was characterised by missing words and word parts. Owen was observed to take 15 minutes to produce the following text: `The Great War should be rememer [crossed out] remembrance becsome the people who fough save al'. In order to circumvent Owen's auditory processing difficulties the class teacher ensured all important instructions were written on assignment sheets as well as spoken.

Owen was in his fifth year of support and his third in the specialist multi-sensory program. In this program, students did not move on to another sound, word group or skill until the current aspect of learning had been thoroughly mastered. Each time the specialist teacher introduced a new word group to Owen, she used a multi-sensory approach to maximise his opportunities to grasp the information. She also made sure the spelling and meaning of each word were taught together. To teach the word `kerb', for example she drew a diagram of a kerb on the board; for `curve', she made a curved shape with her hand. Each new set of words was written onto small cards for Owen to take home and learn. The teacher was confident this would be done because his mother monitored and assisted with his learning support homework.

Owen was clearly very used to the format of the learning support sessions and moved easily from one activity to another. He had learned many different strategies for recognising, remembering and reproducing words. An important aspect of his program was reinforcing learnt strategies and encouraging independence. The specialist teacher stressed the cognitive processes involved in retrieving knowledge of spellings. For instance, when Owen incorrectly wrote `becos' she said:

 Owen, don't expect some magic to make your hand write the correct spelling.
 You must think first. In your head say B-E-C-A-U-S-E. At least until you're
 21.

Later that session, Owen wrote `because' correctly without prompting. This time the teacher stressed the importance of making a cognitive/ physical connection:

Teacher: When you write that in the classroom, Owen, what must you do?

Owen: Say it?

Teacher: Write it in your head. Tell your hand how to write it.

This air of good-natured challenge was typical of the way the specialist teacher interacted with Owen, particularly when she judged he was becoming passive. Owen was continually reminded that working with his specific difficulties required effort and focus. Her prompts also encouraged him to imagine himself in situations where he needed to act independently. This supported the transfer of skills from the withdrawal situation to the classroom context.

Towards the end of Year 6 Owen had just read his first novel and his confidence and presentation of work was much improved.

Owen's mother was aware of the amount of support he had needed at home to cope with primary school homework and dreaded having to assist him with high school assignments. She was pessimistic about Owen's educational and employment future, going so far as to say that she didn't `see much future for him', meaning that Owen most likely would not be able to go to university and have a professional career. The specialist teacher was more hopeful, expressing the view that he would find a `niche' in an area of strength.

James, Year 6 (Rivalland & Brown 2000)

James was an Indigenous student who had moved around a great deal. He had previously lived with his father, but at the time of the study was living with an aunt, who had recently become his legal guardian. This had meant moving to a new school towards which initially he had held a negative attitude and was described as a `refuser'. In the year prior to the study, his attendance at his previous school was only 30 days. There was some concern that he could become violent when asked to undertake his schoolwork, particularly when faced with difficult or new tasks. For this reason the teachers did not push him to participate, actively avoiding confrontation. The classroom teacher explained that she had found ways of getting him to do some tasks at a different time from the other students, which avoided `shaming' James in front of others.

James' aunt, a young, capable and confident woman, had other children of her own at the school; one of them was in James' class. This aunt provided firm discipline, liaised frequently with the school, was very supportive of the school's programs and had a good relationship with the Indigenous Education Worker. Being in the same class as his conscientious female cousin was important for James as she helped him become better organised and provided him with friendship, family support and a positive classroom role model.

James' aunt felt that his reading and writing problems were caused by his parents' separation and reported that when James first came to live with her family, he was painfully shy and didn't like to read aloud. However, with a stable home life, the school's intervention programs and the support of his classroom teacher, James had made a lot of progress. Although he was still shy, he would read to his aunt and uncle. His aunt said that attending the homework classes with her daughter had been very helpful for James.

The school staff were proud of the achievements James had made. At a whole school level it was decided to address James's socialisation problems first. Accordingly his teacher had implemented a behaviour modification program, which appeared to be effective in eliminating inappropriate behaviour.

James took part in a special withdrawal program for children in Years 4 to 7, which included a focus on phonic patterns and was conducted at a rapid pace, allowing no time for children to be off-task. It was strongly goal-directed and included instruction in comprehension, metacognitive strategies, vocabulary development and reading aloud. In one observed withdrawal lesson the instructions for the comprehension activities were written on the blackboard before the lesson began. The students were allowed to use pencil to `underline the part where the answer to the comprehension question is,' on old reading books. The withdrawal teacher called this the `Get ready' strategy ('Get ready to write answers for the comprehension questions'). The students then wrote a full sentence answer in their workbooks by combining the relevant part of the question with the underlined part from the text.

The withdrawal teacher explained how she prepared a beginning vocabulary list with James before starting him on a reading program. She drew on the Salisbury and Dolch word lists and taught him the vocabulary from the first book she had selected for him. Only when he knew 90 per cent of the words was he given the book to read. The immediate success he experienced in `being able to read' had a profound effect on James.

In the regular class a multi-tasking strategy was observed. The class was divided into three groups, the teacher working with the lowest ability group, which included James. All groups read the same text, but the activities were slightly different for each group. James's group had a modified comprehension task appropriate to their level. A brief, explicit modelling of how to answer the comprehension questions was provided as the classroom teacher reinforced a version of the withdrawal teacher's `Get ready' strategy.

James' attendance in the homework classes had been highly beneficial. The homework class tutor liaised with the withdrawal teacher and the classroom teachers so that they were all teaching and reinforcing the same concepts and strategies. The stable home life and positive role model of his cousin had also been critical in James's improvement. The teachers did not feel James had a learning difficulty as such, rather he suffered from a lack of teaching largely caused by non-attendance at school and earlier family problems.

Cathy, Year 5 (Smith 2001)

Cathy lived with her parents in a remote area of Australia, near an old salt mine at which both her parents worked. Three older siblings lived away from home. When her parents moved to their present address in the year before the study began, they enrolled Cathy as a distance education student in a School of the Air. Accordingly, Cathy did not attend school in the same way as most other Australian children. Her classroom was a converted bedroom in her home, and from a distance her teacher managed a class of between eight and ten students and was responsible for the delivery of a daily half-hour class lesson by radio. Where necessary, further communication between the teacher and Cathy and her family was conducted through phone or email, a minimum of three home visits to each student every year, and further contact through camps and seminars held at the School of the Air site in a regional town.

The main responsibility for delivering Cathy's educational program, which was supplied by distance education curriculum development designers, fell to her home tutor, who in this case was Cathy's mother. The home tutor plays a critical role in the education of School of the Air students, by supervising their work. Cathy's mother was supported in this by the School of the Air teacher, principal and a Support Officer Learning Difficulties.

Assessment by the Support Officer Learning Difficulties and her teacher showed that Cathy had some difficulties in reading comprehension, spelling and writing. Her reading rate and accuracy were appropriate for her age level. A highly structured Individual Education Program (IEP) was developed for Cathy that involved the use of motivation, a daily timetable and a list of set activities for each day.

As the Support Officer Learning Difficulties and her teacher monitored Cathy's individual program it became evident that she faced many difficulties related to the distance education mode of learning. Her mother found it particularly difficult to take on the role of home tutor, as she participated in paid work outside the home. As a result Cathy was frequently required to work without supervision. This lack of supervision exacerbated her existing literacy difficulties, as her capacity to organise her own learning was haphazard.

The Support Officer Learning Difficulties and her teacher therefore set up a timetable that required Cathy to phone the teacher each day to confirm the work carried out and to identify areas where she needed further help.

Over a period of time Cathy's inability to organise her work resulted in very little set work being completed and tension developing in the relationship between Cathy and her mother. This situation was compounded each day that Cathy worked alone. Her mother felt that Cathy should have been able to complete the work set in the IEP, but the fact that she chose not to was seen as an attempt to seek her mother's attention. When her mother was able to work with Cathy she often found it difficult to support her:

 I have to go out of the room. I know she can do what's in front of her and
 I get frustrated because she tries to say she can't do it and I know she
 can. That's when I walk out of the room before I start screaming at her.
 She will not work things out for herself. She knows it but she'll just try
 me in certain areas for the reaction.

On the other hand, Cathy's mother had experienced some positive experiences as home tutor:

 She's done some beautiful work and seeing the expression on her face when
 she knows she's done really well. She loves being on the radio because she
 loves getting that input from her teacher and it's just a totally different
 environment for her because she's got one on one. And hearing the other
 kids at the same time has been great.

It is difficult to ascertain whether or not Cathy had a learning difficulty or if the distance education mode of working alone, with mostly written texts, did not suit her way of learning. Cathy's lack of motivation and refusal to complete assigned tasks may have been the result of lack of supervision, inappropriateness of the learning mode, an inability to control her own learning or, most likely, a combination of all these factors.

Yung, Year 3 (Rivalland & Huber 2000)

When Yung's family had arrived in Australia as `boat people' from a refugee camp in a war-torn Asian country, he and his family spent several months in a migrant detention centre. Neither of his parents spoke any English and they were literate in neither English nor their first language. Yung was attending a mainstream school with a Centre for English as a Second Language (ESL) students attached. He had spent the first two years of school in the English Language Centre and, at the time of the study, in Year 3, was in a mainstream class.

Yung's teachers found it difficult to ascertain whether his literacy difficulties were due to limited English proficiency or to a learning difficulty/disability. His teachers had sought help from a range of agencies, but had been unable to find anyone who could clarify this issue. They felt that possibly the two difficulties had been compounded through language loss experienced by Yung in the refugee camp. The teachers also felt his slow development in English might have been related to the oral tradition of his family. While the school regularly used teacher assistants to translate notes, letters and interviews for parents, in Yung's case the language barrier was difficult for the school to manage.

A child who sat opposite Yung spoke the same dialect as he and was helping him with his classwork by translating what the teacher said into his first language. He and two other children were being withdrawn by the ESL teacher for three half-hour sessions every week. During this time the ESL teacher implemented teaching strategies related to decoding, oral language, sentence structures and comprehension. Since Yung was having trouble decoding text, the focus in these lessons was on decoding and discussing whole texts. One purpose of the oral language component of the lesson was to provide scaffolded opportunities for him to answer comprehension questions using appropriate English language structures.

Yung did not appear to understand the skills required to become an effective literacy user. He readily identified a girl whom he thought was good at reading and writing because she got `lots of praise from the teacher'. He indicated that he saw himself as neither a good reader nor writer because he received little praise for his work. His lack of self-confidence and the limited support his parents were able to provide appeared to construct his view of effective literacy as being synonymous with praise.

During an interview for the study his mother spoke through an interpreter. She was reported as saying that while she knew Yung's knowledge and skills in English were improving, she did not know what the school was doing to help her son. She indicated that she was pleased with his progress at school and whilst he had previously been having difficulties learning at school, she now felt he was able to cope much better. Also, for three or four months prior to the research, she had taken up an offer by a church organisation for Yung to receive help at home. She felt this had helped him make progress with his English.

However, Yung's English was developing very slowly. He knew few words and read little. In an interview he indicated that his preferred books were non-fiction and `about dinosaurs'. He also explained that he enjoyed learning about preparing food, which was demonstrated during the school's `healthy food day', and he responded well to the science report genre. He liked writing the words he knew and doing illustrations for his stories. To help with his reading and writing Yung used word lists around the room, a classroom dictionary and his `have-a-go pad' on which he attempted to spell the words he wanted to use in his writing and then checked with his teacher whether his attempt was correct. When reading, if he did not know a word he moved onto the next to see if that would help him work it out. He attempted sounding out words, but frequently needed prompts to do so. It was observed that spelling was difficult for him and when reading became difficult he simply stopped trying to decode words at all. As Yung's progress appeared to be very slow it was difficult for his teachers to determine whether his learning of English as a second language was the primary source of his difficulties or whether he did in fact have a learning disability. Nevertheless, they felt the strategies being used were appropriate and, that if they persevered, development would proceed, even though it might not be at the same rate as that expected of other ESL students.

Riston, Year 1 (Greaves 2000)

Riston's Year 1 literacy class was organised according to the CLASS principles developed and researched collaboratively by the Catholic Education Office in Victoria and the University of Melbourne (see Hill & Crevola 1999). This literacy project is based on research findings on effective teaching and involves a two-hour literacy block, whole school partnerships, intervention assistance and whole school commitment.

Riston said he found reading difficult, as it was `hard to sound the words out'. Educational and cognitive assessments showed him to be of average ability, but with comparatively poorer verbal abilities. He had been referred to a large children's hospital for disobedience and aggressive and disruptive behaviour, as well as poor learning in class. There he was diagnosed as `ADHD with oppositional defiance disorder' and had been given a trial[ on dexamphetamine. He had also seen other specialists from the Catholic Education Office and his parents had been invited to attend parent training sessions. He had undergone cognitive assessments and speech assessment with a speech pathologist from the Catholic Education Office.

Riston's teacher planned his program on the results of school-based assessments that included the Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement (Clay 1985) and the Burt Word Test. She decided that he needed practice with his oral language and to concentrate on the orthography of words. She knew when he had taken his daily dose of dexamphetamine as there were quite distinct differences in his behaviours between the times when he was medicated and when he was not. Without medication he could not control his body movements. He would be restless and continually moving about. He found this constant movement frustrating and became quite irritable. On days of no medication he touched other children and appeared to have no ability to concentrate. His teacher was sensitive to his concentration difficulties and attempted to cater for his needs.

Each day Riston took part in the two-hour uninterrupted class literacy lesson that consisted of reading and writing activities. His teacher said that to keep the attention of students she had a change of activity every 10 to 12 minutes. If he was having difficulty with a task Riston would often ask the class assistant for help. In group sessions he was required to sit on the floor at the teacher's feet. He was in a small `instructional' level group for reading. When reading in this group he was asked to touch the book with his finger to keep his attention on the page. He was reminded to `practise with your eyes' when reading orally. The teacher was able to spend some one-to-one time with Riston when the class was divided into ability groups in their literacy lesson. She had found that he learnt best when he was able to have a physical representation of concepts, so she provided a range of art materials such as paint, crayons and pencils so that he could learn visually and through touch. In addition to the two-hour daily literacy lesson Riston attended four 30 minute Reading Recovery sessions each week.

To assess the efficacy of the one-to-one teaching and the use of concrete materials, the teacher re-administered the Burt Word Test to check Riston's progress and regularly reviewed the daily running records from his Reading Recovery program. Overall his teacher was pleased with his progress.

His mother, who was a single parent, viewed Riston's medication as essential to settle him down and make him concentrate in school. She had noted a great improvement in his reading, which she attributed to his Reading Recovery lessons and medication. At home, he read his home reading book and constructed a sentence from words written on cards. The two aspects of support that Riston's mother found valuable were that the school knew he had a problem and that the class teacher and the special needs teacher provided additional assistance.

Andrew, Year 1 (Rohl 2000)

Andrew had been in the Preprimary/Year 1 class of his rural school for nearly two years. His mother reported that he was a `happy bright kid' who loved school and his teacher, and had been identified as having some speech and hearing problems before he started school. She explained that he had been reluctant to read or write at the beginning of Year 1, would pick up a book to look at the pictures but was not interested in the words and had a poor pencil grip.

Andrew's teacher had specialist qualifications in working with children with difficulties/disabilities. In her class there were many opportunities for children to read, write and comprehend connected text. There was also an emphasis on `auditory work', sight word and letter recognition which, as she pointed out, children `don't pick up by osmosis'. She used a mastery learning approach for these basic skills in which children were required to practise the skill every day and demonstrate mastery on several occasions. Nevertheless, she made this learning fun and interesting as the children sang `silly songs', played whispering and teacher-made games, re-made sentences from cut-up words or took part in Shared Book reading.

Assessment to identify individual strengths and weaknesses was an integral part of the program, with very specific screening tests for both oral and written language. For oral language this involved segmenting sentences into words and words into phonemes and providing rhyming words. This assessment informed the oral language program which had input from a speech pathologist and focussed on `metalinguistics (with an emphasis on phonological awareness), narrative, comprehension, inquiry and vocabulary'.

Andrew's teacher had introduced individual literacy contracts to the classroom. She reasoned that the contracts would individualise learning and take account of the different rates at which children learn and complete their work and eliminate wasted time for early finishers. Each child had to complete an individual contract every morning. The Year 1 children were required to complete nine short tasks involving writing, spelling, phonics, copying from the board, word recognition and a variety of games/activities prepared by the teacher. The contracts for the Preprimary children contained only three tasks. Once the contract was completed to a `good quality' standard the children were allowed `free time' in which they could take part in various play and creative activities such as painting and block construction. In addition to contract work, the teacher implemented various whole group activities that featured reading and writing, usually with direct teaching of skills and concepts. Children were heard reading individually every day by parent volunteers, assistants or teachers and there was a home reading program in which all parents were expected to take part.

An important resource in the literacy program was the A3 size `mat' fixed to each child's table that contained an alphabet chart. There were boxes for the teacher to record two dates at which the child demonstrated recognition of each letter and sound, hearing each single sound at the beginning of a word, and writing each letter. On the back of their mats the Year 1 children had a list of common letter blends. In this way the teacher and child could see at a glance exactly what the child knew and needed to learn in these skill areas.

`Focus groups' were set up for Year 1 children such as Andrew who had been identified as experiencing difficulty. The program began with an emphasis on auditory skills, followed by instruction in letter recognition, word recognition and spelling (lists of common words) and phonics (based on the specific letters and sounds not recognised from the letter mat). The focus groups were taught by the classroom teacher; a sessional teacher taught the rest of the class. Very detailed records were made each week of the children's achievements, which included dated work samples in order to assess progress and indicate further needs.

Andrew's teacher described how he had initially experienced great difficulty in copying words and would not try writing on his own. By the end of Year 1 his handwriting had `improved out of all recognition', he was leaving spaces between words and writing short `stories'. He also demonstrated mastery of all alphabet letters, single sounds, 38 of the Salisbury `First Hundred Words' and some of the next list, whereas at the beginning of the year he had recognised only a handful of letters and few words.

His teacher was pleased with Andrew's progress, attributing much of his success to the focus group instruction. Nevertheless, she still saw `some gaps' in his knowledge and in his ability to cope with the structure of the classroom. He was observed to operate independently in a small group of children on the one day of the week when the Preprimary children did not attend school. He showed knowledge of the classroom routines with, `I've got to write the date first. It's Naughty Nick [the Letterland character] today'. He was well able to learn his spelling words for the day, saying, `I don't need to see it, you have to hide it and write it', and he could test his partner for spelling.

Andrew's mother reported that, at the end of Year 1, he was more interested in literacy, would write, colour in, read some books, albeit reluctantly, and had a good pencil grip. He did his home reading to his older sister, not his parents. She felt he had made very good progress during the year and could do well when he `took the time' as he was `always in a rush.' His mother attributed Andrew's success to the weekly small group situations when the Preprimary children did not attend where he did `his best work ever' and to his `great teacher who seems to know which direction he needs to go in ... communicates with us ... picked the problem up early and addressed it in one-on-one work in the classroom'.

Additionally Andrew's parents conducted a home speech program that concentrated on phonological development. They realised that he still had a few speech problems, but also saw that he was consciously aware of mispronunciations and able to employ fix-up strategies. In order to improve his handwriting skills he had also taken part in a fine motor program conducted by an occupational therapist at his school.

Issues

The six children we have introduced here were selected in order to provide evidence about the many issues facing schools, teachers and parents as they endeavour to support children who are having difficulty in learning literacy. Contrary to countless reports in the media there is no one literacy program or strategy that will be effective for all children with learning difficulties. When schools are making decisions about how they might best support these children a range of issues needs to be taken into account.

The diversity of children identified

There is evidence from these case studies that Australian schools are identifying a wide range of children as having difficulty in learning literacy. The children identified included those whose difficulties were most likely caused by, or concomitant with, a range of conditions and circumstances. Yung and James came from linguistic and cultural backgrounds that could have influenced their difficulties. Riston had a behavioural condition that appeared to make literacy learning difficult. Andrew had difficulties that appeared to be transitory and he had responded well to highly structured teaching. Cathy's life circumstances had placed her in a situation where the mode of learning may not have been suited to her needs. Owen had been diagnosed with a specific learning disability that was long term, with the assumption of intrinsic causes related to central nervous system dysfunction (Hammill 1990). Nevertheless, what these children had in common was that they were all experiencing difficulty in learning English literacy, whatever the cause.

The fragility of learning

From our observations and discussions with students, parents and teachers, we found that school life was often arduous for these children. Cathy, for example found it very difficult to work alone, with little supervision of her work that was mostly in a written mode. Yung and James found that they had to work much harder than their normally achieving class-mates because they were not able to take with them to school those literacy practices valued by schools. Furthermore, they were both in family circumstances where their parents were not able to provide the intensive support given by the families of Owen and Andrew. Yung, Cathy and James had all been affected by family mobility, which had disrupted their learning. Even in the case of Andrew, who appeared to have made very good progress in a class where he had outstanding support, it is difficult to make predictions about his progress as he moves into different learning situations with different teachers.

Identification and assessment

It was apparent in the cases of Riston, Andrew and Owen that early identification, diagnosis and the opportunity to access specialist services had facilitated the planning of appropriate support programs. All three children were fortunate to live in families where their parents had the capacity to seek out and take advantage of the support services available. Where children were not able to access specialist diagnoses, it was often difficult for teachers to ascertain the nature of the difficulty. It was difficult for Yung's teachers to know if his difficulties related to his linguistic background, cognitive ability, a learning disability or a combination of these factors. Similarly, in Cathy's case it was difficult to know whether her poor comprehension was related to a learning disability, her life circumstances or the distance education mode of learning.

Snow, Burns and Griffin (1998) have highlighted the importance of early identification. They point out how important it is that children be assessed as early as possible in order to identify the primary locus of their difficulty so that other professionals can be contacted if necessary and teaching focussed on children's individual needs. It was noted that Andrew, like many other students of all ages who were identified in the Mapping the Territory study, had experienced early speech and language problems, accompanied by a history of ear infections and concomitant short-term hearing loss. Speech, language and hearing problems appeared to be particularly prevalent in the early years of school. Snow, Burns and Griffin have identified speech and hearing problems in the early years as predisposing factors for reading difficulties.

Early years programs

The schools provided a variety of programs to meet the needs of the students with learning difficulties. It has been shown that good early years teaching has the potential to prevent long term literacy difficulties for many children (Snow, Burns & Griffin 1998). Andrew's school provided a whole school commitment to effective classroom teaching in the early years. This was achieved through the flexible use of school staff in order to provide a variety of whole group, small group and individual literacy experiences and included systematic practice, explicit instruction in code-breaking, a strong emphasis on oral language, frequent practice in reading aloud, comprehension of text, games, motivating activities and systematic regular assessment of taught skills. The oral language component, which had input from a speech pathologist, included phonological awareness, vocabulary building and listening, speaking and thinking skills.

Riston was also involved in a structured early literacy program, which involved a daily two-hour literacy lesson that focussed on both skills and work with connected text. Within the classroom program Riston's program included multi-sensory learning strategies and the facilitation of on-task behaviour by frequent change of activities. The addition of creative resources, and in the case of Andrew the use of play activities, seemed to be particularly important for these highly active children. The whole school plan at Riston's school incorporated provision for him to take part in the one-to-one Reading Recovery program. Crevola and Hill (1998) have reported effective outcomes from the Reading Recovery program when embedded in a whole school program. Another whole school feature of Riston's program was the close liaison between the classroom teacher, the Reading Recovery teacher and the school literacy coordinator.

Ongoing support

Yung, Cathy, James and Owen were in the middle or upper primary years. All, except for Cathy, had been given significant additional support in their early school years. In spite of this, these children were still in need of special support programs designed to meet their individual literacy needs. Yung had taken part in intensive English classes for his first two years at school. Now in Year 3, he was provided with an individual program that focussed on oral language, decoding, sentence structures and scaffolded opportunities to answer comprehension questions. His class teacher also concentrated on building his self-confidence. Cathy was provided with an IEP by the Support Officer Learning Difficulties, which focussed on scaffolding her learning in order to enable her to complete set tasks.

Both James and Owen were preparing to move to secondary school. James' modified program included a withdrawal session each day, during which the focus was comprehension, vocabulary development and reading aloud. There was a strong emphasis on goal setting and confidence building. The classroom teacher supported these strategies and, through a small group, was able to reinforce the withdrawal teacher's strategies. Extra support was provided through homework classes in which the Indigenous Education Worker liaised with both the withdrawal and classroom teachers to reinforce concepts and strategies. James' future progress was likely to be contingent upon continued support for his literacy learning.

Since Year 3 Owen had been in a specialist program for students with specific learning disabilities, and before that time his parents had provided him with specialist tutoring services. His highly structured classroom program had a strong emphasis on specific skills, such as spelling and auditory processing activities. There was a strong emphasis on metacognitive strategies for recognising, remembering and reproducing words. The program was taught using integrated units of work and was planned to enhance confidence building and presentation of work. Despite his specific learning disability, at the end of Year 6, with years of support provided by the school and his mother, Owen's great achievement was the reading of his first novel.

Variety of programs

The programs provided by schools for the six children were very different in terms of knowledge and skills taught, as well as time allocated and modes of delivery. As various researchers have pointed out (Coles 1998; Duffy & Hoffman 1999), there is no one best method that is effective for all children and teaching needs to be differentiated for individual learners (Juel & Minden-Cupp 2000). Nevertheless, there were some common features in the programs created for the six children. All the schools that the children attended had taken some form of a whole school approach to providing for students with learning difficulties. As a result, a specialist teacher had allocated additional instructional time to all children, in an individual or small group withdrawal setting. Cathy, because of her geographical isolation, was in effect in a withdrawal situation. All programs had a strong emphasis on the specific aspects of literacy that the children needed to learn, but also attempted to motivate the students and raise their levels of confidence as learners. Further, there was a concerted attempt to integrate the classroom and withdrawal programs; in Andrew's case it was the classroom teacher who conducted the withdrawal focus group, so that in effect the other children in the class were withdrawn. What was also apparent was the enthusiasm and commitment on the part of both classroom and specialist teachers to improve literacy outcomes for these children. Home-school communication and parental involvement were encouraged in all programs, although Cathy's and Yung's parents were not able to take part in these to any great extent, and James' aunt was taking on the role of parent in liaising closely with the school and helping with homework. (Nichols and Read, this volume, examine the issue of home-school communication in detail.)

Conclusions

At the beginning of this article we pointed out that the issue of definition of learning difficulties is contentious because there is no commonly accepted definition of learning difficulty/disability within the Australian context. Our analysis of the six children's literacy difficulties and home and school circumstances reinforces the complexity of identifying needs and effectively supporting learning for children who have difficulty in learning literacy. Nevertheless, it seems to us that the following conclusions may be drawn from this analysis.

It is apparent from these reported case studies that early identification and intervention programs can support literacy development. La Paro and Pianta (2000) have shown that only a relatively small amount of the variance in early school achievement is accounted for by pre-existing child factors, so that early intervention by schools has the potential to prevent many literacy learning difficulties. When assessment and intervention are systematic and implemented by highly skilled teachers in individual or small group settings there seem to be particularly effective outcomes (Clay 1985, Snow, Burns & Griffin 1998). Further, when early years programs include specific instruction in word level skills, literacy learning is enhanced (Tunmer, Chapman & Prochnow in press).

The findings are in accordance with the conclusions of Luke (1994) and Hill, Comber, Louden, Rivalland and Reid (1998) that the linguistic and cultural resources children bring to school differentially influence how they are able to take up what is on offer in school literacy. Nevertheless, it is important that teachers hold high expectations for these children. Au (2000) maintains that `there should not be a different set of standards for students of diverse backgrounds, but there should be a recognition that these students may require more powerful instruction and additional time to reach standards' (p. 884). Classroom instruction therefore needs to be differentiated to meet the needs of all students (Juel & Minden-Cupp 2000). Andrew's daily literacy contract was one means of differentiating his program.

Not only did some children bring to the school context different linguistic and cultural resources, but also some parents did not appear to not have the personal, economic, cultural or linguistic resources with which to access specialist services and help their children achieve expected literacy outcomes. It is important that schools and systems recognise the difficulties that some parents have and find alternative means for them to access services and receive additional support.

Changes to Cathy's schooling and non-attendance at school by James were associated with their literacy difficulties. Gray and Hunter (2000) and Louden and Hunter (1999) have shown that these variables have strong potential for affecting children's literacy learning. Schools and systems need effective processes for tracking children who move from school to school and to find ways of encouraging school attendance that are appropriate for different community groups.

Even when early intervention and highly skilled specialist teaching is available some children will need on-going support throughout their schooling. Allington (2002) has reported on the lack of research into school programs that provide long-term support for children with learning difficulties/disabilities. He has also commented that typically schools plan their budgets on a short-term basis, with the result that support for students may be sporadic and not long-term or continuing. Whilst the schools of the six children selected for this study were all supporting students with learning difficulties in some way throughout the primary years, most resources were directed to the early years of school. (An exception was Owen's independent school that was able to provide intensive and cohesive specialist support from Year 3 onwards.) Whole school long-term planning is critical to ensure systematic and appropriate provision that supports children with learning difficulties throughout their school lives.

High quality teaching is most important in children's literacy learning. Darling-Hammond (2000) has described how a growing body of research shows that a substantial proportion of school effectiveness data can be attributed to teachers and that teacher effects are cumulative. Similarly, Hill and Rowe (1998) point to the importance of the teacher when they suggest that it is `the identity of the class to which the student belongs that is the key determinant of progress made by the student' (p. 325). From our reports of the six children with literacy learning difficulties it seems that it is not only classroom teachers but also specialist teachers, who liaise closely with classroom teachers, who have a profound effect on literacy learning outcomes.

Investment in professional development and the raising of teacher qualifications is an important means of ensuring high quality teaching (Ferguson 1991). Andrew's classroom teacher was highly qualified in the area of learning difficulties and as a result was able to provide high quality classroom and focus group teaching in the early years of school. Similarly, Owen's specialist teacher had intensive training to work with students with specific learning difficulties/dyslexia and was able to cater for his particular needs. Nevertheless, a survey of school principals for the Mapping the Territory study (Rohl & Milton 2002) indicated that many schools did not have access to teachers with specialist training and the case studies showed that middle and upper primary teachers were particularly unsure of how to deal with students with learning difficulties. It seems to be of the utmost importance that there is investment in long-term professional development for teachers working with students who have learning difficulties.

In summary, success in teaching these children depends on the knowledge and capacity of teachers to find methods and strategies that effectively differentiate instruction for children who may be identified as having learning difficulties. It is individual classroom teachers who have the potential to make a real difference to children's learning and, as we have shown, their capacity to work co-operatively with parents and a variety of specialist personnel is of the utmost importance. These teachers, however, are often operating in less than ideal environments and with limited resources. It is most important that governments, systems and sectors provide funding and opportunities for professional development for teachers and adequate resources so that effective support can be directed to the specific literacy needs of individual children.

(1.) This project was funded under the Literacy and Numeracy Programme administered by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA). The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Department.

(2.) This project was funded jointly by all Edith Cowan University Institute for the Service Professions Industry Collaboration Grant and the Centre for Inclusive Schooling, Department of Education (WA).

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Mary Rohl and Judith Rivalland EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Judith Rivalland is an Associate Professor at Edith Cowan University, where she is Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning and Program Director of the Kindergarten through Primary Teacher Education Course. Her special interests are in the areas of literacy development, the effective teaching of early and primary years literacy and literacy difficulties. Over the past seven years Judith, Mary Rohl and other ECU researchers have worked on eight DEST-funded national literacy research projects.

Address: School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup Drive, Joondalup WA 6027

Email: j.rivalland@ecu.edu.au

Mary Rohl is a Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Learning Difficulties at Edith Cowan University, where she is Co-Director of the Centre for Applied Language and Literacy Research. Her particular interests are in early literacy and literacy learning. difficulties, including teacher education in these areas.

Address: School of Education, Edith Cowan University, Pearson Street, Churchlands WA 6018

Email: m.rohl@ecu.edu.au