http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-11/c ... ad/8435562
I'm cross-referencing this check with the thread from the 'General Forum' dedicated to the paper of Dr Jennifer Buckingham proposing the adoption of a phonics check in Australia:Australia urged to use phonics in reading strategy as British schools minister tours country
By the National Reporting Team's Natasha Robinson and Rebecca Ermitage
British schools minister Nick Gibb is urging Australia to embrace phonics as part of a national strategy to help children read.
He is here to meet educators, teachers and politicians as the Turnbull Government moves to introduce literacy screening in Year 1 across the country.
Mr Gibb has toured a specialist literacy laboratory at Macquarie University in Sydney ahead of a meeting with federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham in Adelaide later this week.
Seven years ago, the UK Government embraced the explicit method of instruction known as phonics at a national level amid concerning national statistics.
Mr Gibb is responsible for English schools.
"We were worried that one in three primary school students were still struggling with reading, the basic building blocks of an education," Mr Gibb said.
"We wanted to make sure that schools were using systematic synthetic phonics in the way they taught children to read, because all the evidence from around the world showed that was the most effective way of teaching children to read.
http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=688