News Archive

In 2010 the Catholic Education Office of WA (CEOWA) commissioned Associate Professor Valerie Faulkner and Associate Professor Grace Oakley to undertake a detailed study that explored supporting student improvement in spelling, word knowledge and reading comprehension.

A key focus for the  study was to improve teacher knowledge of how to support students with spelling, word knowledge and vocabulary development. Eight schools participated in the study during 2010. Four schools from the 2009 pilot study and four additional schools that joined the study in first term 2010. This phase of the project reported in March 2011 with a detailed report titled Making the Links: Integrating Spelling, Vocabulary, Knowledge and Comprehension across the Curriculum.

This report has been welcomed by the CEOWA teaching community as the data continues to support both researchers and participants’ claims that teachers must develop a deep understanding of the developmental aspect of spelling and word knowledge as well as explore the links between vocabulary knowledge and comprehension.  It also reinforces the value of students being explicitly supported in building word knowledge, of applying this knowledge across the curriculum and using this knowledge to become more strategic readers.

This report has been approved by the CEOWA for publication on the GSE website to enable the wider education community to explore its findings.

The CEOWA is continuing this project into a third phase with funding of $100,000 in 2011 and 2012.

This stage of the project will continue with the existing eight schools and focus on the professional development of mentor teachers in the respective schools. This stage of the project will report in March 2012.