Carolyn D Baker Memorial Lecture

1. Carolyn D Baker Memorial Lecture University of Queensland, September 18, 2009 Children’s First School Books – 20 years on. Jo-Anne Reid Charles Sturt University

2. Discursive continuities in the practices associated with the teaching of reading From To

3. When you are certain they have mastered the alphabet, teach them the syllables, using the Lord’s prayer as your text. All this time pay close attention to their pronunciation, and do not allow the boys to slur or drawl their vowels and consonants in the manner of their natural speech, but make them separate and distinguish the sounds clearly from one another, as is done in Latin diction. Lutheran School Ordinance, Saxony 1580 (Graff, H. 1981, Literacy and Social Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 102)

4. Mrs Wesley's methods of teaching her children to read are perhaps most widely known. [...] When one of the Wesley children reached the age of five, a day was set aside to teach it to read. All in turn began their lesson at nine in the morning; by five o'clock they knew their letters, 'except Molly and Nancy, who were a day and a half before they knew them perfectly', for which their mother thought them very dull. On the following day the child was ready to tackle the first chapter of Genesis (Musgrove 1966:6). Musgrove, F. (1966). The Family, Education and Society. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

5. From http://www.wilton.k12.ct.us/cm/kent/4thshared/colonialwebquest/resources.html

6. To To http://records.viu.ca/homeroom/content/images/Textbook/djguess1.jpg http://www.sterlingtimes.org/dick_and_dora.htm.

7. To To http://ninadavis.wordpress.com/tag/pm-readers/ To http://www.makeandtakes.com http://jport.files.wordpress.com/2007

8. To http://www.staeducational.com

9. The construction of reading instruction as a problem in public schooling CHAPTER I THE DEFECTIVE STATE OF SCHOOL METHODS Methods affect the character of popular education – The place reading should occupy in school curriculum – Reading writing and arithmetic instruments of education – The cry for better reading in schools – What it indicates – Many children still unable to read – Many young persons losing the ability to read because but partially taught when at school – Other means of improvement not equal to reading – Instances of disregard to elementary reading – Infant schools successful in teaching to read – Advanced in use of simultaneous methods – All children should be taught to read soon – Objections to simultaneous teaching (White, G. 1862, A simultaneous method of teaching to read adapted to primary schools)

10. NAPLAN 2008-2009 The results show that more than 90 per cent of students are performing at or above the national minimum standard in each of the key areas. About 80 per cent achieved above the minimum standard. But it remains of great concern that the data shows that Indigenous student achievement is significantly lower than non-Indigenous students in all areas tested and all jurisdictions. (Gillard Dec 19 2008) The Report shows that more than 90 per cent of Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are performing at or above the national minimum standard in reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy. However, the results also indicate that there are still some students who have not attained the literacy and numeracy skills expected of students in their year level. (Gillard Sep 11 2009)

11. The legacy of Carolyn Baker’s work is that it shifted attention from the problem of what students can and cannot do, cognitively, to the problem of what teachers and students can be seen to be doing, culturally. This is in contrast to most contemporary theories about reading instruction that make problematic the students’ acquisition of and facility with whatever is currently theorised as reading skills or processes, as played out locally in classrooms. A reading pedagogy that focuses only on the competence of the child is a political pedagogy that naturalises the teachers’ expertise and authority as a reader. This obscures the recognition of teaching procedures as institutionalising and crediting culturally specific ways of reading … it obscures the recognition of classroom reading practices as constitutive of the social relations of schooling (see Baker 1991, p. 184).

12. Text and counter text • Classroom literacy practices that constitute some children as outside the boundaries of normality. • Beginning reading texts that work to re-position some children as within the boundaries of classroom textual practice

13. I am David A reading lesson Me and Priscilla Get Ready

14. Literacy Event One - discourses, programs, and effects

15. Stories for and about “children” can be used as resources for making children “happen” as cultural events (cf.-- Atkinson 1980). The teacher and text together supply the cultural location of the child, and equip the child with reading practices – such as comparing themselves with text characters – which evidence that very location. (Baker 1991, p. 175)

16. [T]he way a text is written is a construction of its readership […]. In this sense it is not easy to separate the nature and suitability of the texts from assumptions about the readership for whom they are written. (Baker and Freebody 1989, p.xx)

17. Literacy Event Two- the construction of reading failure 9.25 Mrs K: OK, time for some group work Children turn to look at the back wall display, where their work group lists are pinned. Each group has a set of symbols pinned beneath their list of names, and Mrs K reads out the activity that each group is to undertake during the first 'rotation'. Jake's group's first activity is 'Book buddies'. Jake: I haven't got my book Daniel: You can read around the room

18. Jake sits on floor with his book buddy, Daniel, who is in Year 1. Jake watches as Daniel reads from alphabet chart on wall. He joins in, choral reading, singing. They move further along the wall, continuing their print crawl. 9.35 Daniel returns to floor, takes up his book. Jake sits with him. Matthew, also Year 1, joins them. They take turns to read. Matthew: (to Daniel) But he's reading it all wrong...

19. Jake sits back on haunches and watches the two boys read. He stops attending to print, not watching the book at all. 9.40 Jake stands, up, wanders, moves behind screen to beanbag. Sits, legs straight out in front of him, staring straight ahead. 9.45Jake stands up, moves behind a metal bookcase which screens him from the rest of the room. Begins arranging magnetic letters on the back of the bookcase

20. A Parent Helper arrives, and sits on a low chair beside Jake. He smiles. Jake: I've writ my name. He points to the letters: JAOKA Parent Helper (PH) changes the letters to JAKOB Jake leaves this on the board, lies back in the beanbag, and accepts a bag that PH passes to him. Takes out a set of foam letter blocks from the bag, and sets them out on the floor in front of him. He looks closely at his name on the board, JAKOB

21. Jake sets out C rotates this so that it faces backwards. Adds A and L.

22. Changes this to He cannot complete the name, looks in bag for another letter, finds K, sets down matching shapes carefully against the magnetic letters on the bookcase. JAKOB

23. Jake is concentrating hard, slowly placing letters in this sequence. PH: Didn’t you write your name up here? Jake points to where she has placed the letters of his name. PH points to each letter in turn, saying:J, A, K, O,B. Picks up foam letter J . PH: What's this letter? Jake: Oh, it's my name. PH: I'll put it here. Moves magnetic letters closer to Jake's eye level.

24. Jake carefully selects foam letters. Sets down The O is set on its side. He checks carefully again with his name on the board, turns it around,

25. PH: What's happened to your name, Jake? It's a joke! JOAK now! Jake takesaway the C, tries it on the K. Keeps OAK, can't see a J in the pile of letters in front of him on the floor. Passes it, doesn't recognise it. Picks pieces of foam from the letters, throwing them onto the floor. Chooses a C. He sets out

26. 10.00 Regards his work, checks against the magnetic letters on the back of the bookcase. Pauses and regards his creation. Points to letters, trying to pair them with the magnetic letters on the board. JAKOB

27. Traces the K with his fingers, slowly. Shows PH. PH: Take these yellow ones out (removing the Cs), Here’s the J you were looking for, and.. (places the B on the floor) PH: Is that the same as that? (Jake nods) How do you spell that? J, A, K, O, B. Again...? Jake: J, A, K, O, B (says it with her) PH: again? Jake: J, A, K, O, B PH: again? Jake: J, A, K, O, B

28. PH: again? Jake: J, day, day, day… (giggles) PH: J, A, K? (taking foam letters up, and putting them down. Mixes them up on the floor) Jake accepts the unspoken invitation and makes Observes, decides it is wrong.

29. then Shows PH PH: What's wrong with this, now? Are you a girl? It says 'Jaki'. Jake raises both hands, slaps them down into the foam blocks, then turns and hits PH with his hands. She grabs his arms to restrain him, he butts her with his head.

30. PH: Stop that! No! Jake! Mrs K: (from behind screen, standing, seeing, but aware of the disturbance) Jake! Jake! I'm watching you. Rotate now, Jake, your group's going to Diary. Jake lies back on beanbag, staring straight ahead. PH leaves to next activity.

31. Reading practices can be seen and studied as social and cultural practices – practices that assemble the identities of and relations among participants, and that create a recognisable structure and order in the classroom. (Baker 1991, p. 166)

32. Literacy Event Three - Indij readers The aim of Indij Readers’ stories is twofold: • to help students learn to read; • to encourage and support teachers to explore with their students, contemporary Indigenous perspectives and issues, and thus progress Reconciliation in Australia. Liam Lawson of Dareton, NSW pictured with Margaret Cossey. Liam later worked with Aunties Roslyn Thorpe and Naomi Carr in telling his story about a special bird called ‘Fat head.’ Photo by Johnno Mitchell.

33. It is impossible to separate the talk about the stories from the talk that describes what could count as literate practice in the classroom… it would be equally difficult to separate the talk about the stories from the talk that codes social relations in the classroom. (Baker 1991, p. 165)

34. Conclusion 20 years on? What have we learnt? What changes do we see in classroom reading practices that marginalise, disempower, and position some children as failures in the practices that constitute them as readers in school – • I regret my own complicity in marginalising Shaun and Peter, • I work towards change that would have helped his teacher deal more effectively with Jake • I celebrate the work of Margaret Cossey, Aunty Deanna and the Indij readers project as they legitimate the place of children like Rochelle in classrooms where they expect to achieve success in school literacy,

35. I ask you to think about the continuities in the literacy practices of literacy instruction I talked about at the start -practices that leave traces in the discourses that structure reading instruction in schools today. • Without change in these, the work on the first school books that children like Rochelle, Liam, Jayda and the other little fullas are given to read will continue to exclude and disenfranchise

36. From their analyses of a large corpus of beginning reading books as well as of a number of classroom reading events, Baker and Freebody (1989) concluded that the strong implication is of a continuity of ideological practice – notably an apparent child-centredness masking an adultist pedagogic interest – across the texts and their actual use as items of classroom discourse. (Baker 1991, p. 175) .

37. [C]urrent and future theory, practice and research about literacy can be stimulated by careful analysis of the ways in which school-literacy is built…”

38. References • Baker, Carolyn D.(1991) Literacy practices and social relations, in C. D. Baker & A. Luke ( Eds) Towards a critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Bennjamins, pp. 161-188. • Hill, S., Comber, B., Louden, W., Rivalland, J. and Reid, J. 1998, 100 children go to school: Connections and disconnections in literacy development in the year prior to school and the first year of school. Vols I, II, and III. DEETYA. Commonwealth of Australia. • http://www.coloring-pages-book-for-kids-boys.com/free-alphabet-coloring-pages.html • http://www.sterlingtimes.org/dick_and_dora.htm. • Musgrove, F. (1966). The Family, Education and Society. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.