Home Page //// Contact Read Australia™ ///// Read Australia™ Rates and Services/ //// Teaching Children to Read and Spell
//// Next Read Australia workshops and courses for Parents ////Read Australia™ In-service Training for Kindy, Prep & Schools (plus
adults working with teenagers with literacy difficulties) / //// How to Teach Reading and Spelling Books and Resources ///// About Phonics
 /////Dyslexia and Learning Difficulties ///// Worldwide Research into the Teaching of Reading //// 
About the Phono-Graphix Teaching Method //// About the Jolly Phonics Teaching Method ////About the SuperPhonics Teaching Method ////
About the THRASS Teaching Method ////About the Sounds~Write Teaching Method ////About The Speech Sound (and Vowel) Set
//// About the MULTILIT - Making up lost time in Literacy- Method //// About Phonics International
Let Read Australia™ know of other effective methods ////How to test your child's reading ability- Reading Tests and Assessments
Useful 'Teaching Reading and Spelling' Site Links & Read Australia™ Directory /

Read Australia Founder

Emma Hartnell-Baker

Emma
and also known as
The Child Listener

Read Australia is brought you by Emma Hartnell-Baker who has a BEd Hons with a Specialism in The Early Years (1992) and Post Graduate qualifications in Special Needs (Behaviour Management, Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Counselling and Helping People and Dyslexia)
She has a Masters Degree in Special Needs from Nottingham University and is a
Professional Life Coach

Read More About
Emma Hartnell-Baker

Using Jolly Phonics
- A Guide For Teaching
Reading And Writing

Superphonics - Ruth Miskin
Visit the Books and Resources Page
for the whole range of
Super Phonics reading
and spelling books and activities

Email info@ReadAustralia.com

Offering a range of Services to Parents & Teachers
- specialising in Early Years Education and Behaviour Support
for Children and Teens.

Emma Hartnell-Baker is also known as The Child Listener
Read Australia™ has been created to empower parents, and offer information relating to
what we know about effective methods of teaching children to read and spell.
Gold Coast (07) 5510 9960

'How to Teach ALL Children to Read, Write and Spell with Confidence' Instructional DVD for sale- $79
- please note that this is not a professionally created DVD. Due to the high number
of requests for an instructional DVD (with focus on phonics, and especially for
parents of young children) the Read Australia™ Director has videoed this herself,
to offer our site visitors something before our 'official' video is released.

This DVD is suitable for parents and teachers and includes
footage of children aged 5 and 7 who are learning to read and spell.
One is having some difficulties and Emma discusses what her parents
and teacher could now focus on, to fill the gaps in her learning.

You wil also see activities using a made up alphabet that show why it is
so important that children are taught the code- and specifically the 'sounds'
each letter (or two or more letters together) represents.

You will see the ways in which sounds can be represented on paper- and
which parts of the written code are used more than others.

Learn what skills children need to learn in order to be confident readers-
and to be good at spelling even nonsense words and words
never heard of before.

A few popular programs such as Jolly Phonics and
Superphonics are mentioned as well as recommended de-codable readers.

A percentage of procedes will go into our free services and resources for
parents- including the Parents Aboard program. Thank you for your support.

 
Empowering parents and teachers - sharing research and useful information
relating to the teaching of reading worldwide, with a focus on Australia

When is a good time to start teaching children to read?

A child begins learning at birth.
Early experiences with spoken and written language set the stage for a child to
become a successful reader. The more you talk, read and interact with your child,
the better chance he has to become a good reader. A good time to
start teaching your child about letters and sounds is when he begins to talk.

When a child learns about print and books and how they are used, this is called
print awareness. He becomes familiar with the idea that the words he sees in
print are related to the words he speaks. For example, words can be
seen in books or on billboards.

What is alphabetic knowledge?

When a child begins knowing the names and shapes of letters this is called
alphabetic knowledge.

What is phonological awareness?

When a child begins to understand that sentences are made up of words, and words have parts called syllables, he is beginning to develop phonological awareness which is the ability to learn about sounds of spoken language.

What is phonemic awareness?

When a child also understands that spoken words are made up of separate small sounds, he is developing phonemic awareness. These individual sounds in spoken language are called phonemes. For example, there are three phonemes (or sounds) in the word big, /b/, /i/, and /g/. (A letter between slash marks shows the sound that the letter represents, not the name of the letter).

Phonics is when a reader learns to use letter/sound relationships to form
words and is able to recognize words when he sees them.

Blending is when the reader puts together sounds to make words.

When the child takes spoken words apart sound by sound.

Phonics instruction is when the instructor helps the beginning reader see the relationship between sounds of spoken language and letters of written language. Understanding these relationships gives the child a tool that he can use to recognize familiar words and figure out words he hasn't seen before.

At Read Australia we target parents- and especially parents of pre-school aged children- as
YOU (the parent) are the best person to teach them before they start school!
Also offered is a library type service - check resources and phonics based 'readers' in and out at
Pink Bubblez- the new head office for 'Read Australia. We have found that - disappointingly- not all QLD schools are offering 'readers' that are created using phonics- so the children are guessing
or memorising rather than de-coding.

If your child is coming home with 'sight words' ie whole words (flash cards) - please
consider this a red flag. Check your child is being taught in ways that are in line with the
officail government report- the AU Inquiriy intho the Teaching of Literacy (2005)

Instead, children should be learning that the sounds we use within words can be represented
by sound pictures or sound symbols (a, b, c etc - sounds not letter names) and that put together
we can create words. This is a very basic explanation, however the message here is that if they learn
how to de-code words- both real and nonsense-ad how to create words because thy know what sound pictures/ symbols(or combinations) represent these sounds they can de-code- and spell- any word!
There are very few words that cant be de-coded- so why teach whole words- the
brain can only memorise so many. Keep it simple!

Not sure what all this means- and dont want to leave it to chance- that their teacher knows
everything they need to know about teaching reading and spelling?
Come along to one of our FREE workshops- held on the first Friday of every month!

Ph Emma for more info 07 5510 9960

Please also call to book in-service training for Early Years Education providers-and for
private tutoring sessions on the Gold Coast, QLD.

Training provider? We welcome quality trainers- use Pink Bubblez as a venue for your next workshop!

No one 'teaching reading and spelling' method is promoted at Read Australia-
adults wll instead learn to create individual programs for
each child in their family or classroom, with resources and activities used from a variety of quality
programs, such as Jolly Phonics and Superphonics, This is in line with
the findings and recommendations outlined within the AU Gov report, 2005

Read Australia- training parents and teachers how to teach children to read
quickly and effectively using methods that are work for all children INCLUDING children with dyslexia
and other learning difficulties & Special Needs. Offering reading and spelling training and workshops across Australia.

Footprint Solutions are proud to bring to you the following useful Australia web sites
Read Australia // The Child Listener //
We are now based on the Gold Coast, Queensland Office.

Reviewing teaching methods such as Jolly Phonics, SuperPhonics and more!
Getting Australia reading- and loving it! Phonics DVDS and Instructional Video Clips
www.readaustralia.com

Read Australia© 2006-7-8-9-10 All Rights Reserved www.readaustralia.com

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