WHEN you are asked to photograph every aspect of your classroom so it can be distributed to the State’s kindy teachers as a leading example of how to implement the Best Start Program, you must be doing something right with your job.
And when you can say “I’m really loving being a teacher again. I’m very happy and I think it shows,” you must be doing something right with your life.
The program behind Bundanoon Public School’s Kindergarten teacher Ruth Goldstein’s revitalisation is the Language, Learning and Literacy project (L3), a new revolution in early learning occurring in public schools throughout the Highlands and Illawarra.
Ms Goldstein first heard of the program a couple of years ago when it was being trialled in a Wollongong school.
“The results were amazing. I even thought they had been cheating at first,” she said.
She was unable to become involved immediately because the program had entered an assessment phase, but as soon as L3 training became available in 2009, she signed up, travelling to Ryde once a fortnight to learn the program.
Ms Goldstein then passed on her knowledge to others in the Highlands and Goulburn area when she returned. She is still the only L3 Trainer in the region.
“I absolutely love the L3 program,” she said.
“In my 21 years as a teacher, I have never found something so effective. It really empowers little kids and pushes five-year-olds to be the best they can be.
“And it empowers teachers, too; they really need to know what they’re doing to implement this program effectively.”
The L3 program aims to support all students in Kindergarten to become successful readers and writers and is designed to respond to individual learning needs.
It combines reading, writing and speaking, showing how all those skills link: if you can read this word, then you can write it. And if you speak this word, then you can read it, and so on.
At Bundanoon Public School last year, the results spoke for themselves.
The project aimed to have 50 per cent of kindy kids reading at least at Level 9 by the end of the year. At Bundanoon this figure was 64 per cent.
In writing, the L3 aim is to have 50 per cent of students leave kindergarten with an accurate written vocabulary of no fewer than 24 words. At Bundanoon, 84 per cent of students reached this goal.
Ms Goldstein said the beauty of the L3 was that even children who came from a language deprived background, such as where the parents do not speak English at home, had just as much chance at achieving these levels as those who started kindy with good literacy.
“I get a thrill every day seeing children implementing their learning in their independent activities,” she said.
“What was really rewarding was knowing that my 2009 kindy class, midway through last year, saw themselves as readers and writers.
“They would spend two hours in the writing centre purely because they loved it.”
Ms Goldstein also really enjoyed helping other teachers gain the level of satisfaction from their jobs that she had.
“It’s a hard road though,” she said. “L3 challenges every belief a kindy teacher has about what the students are capable of and how they should be taught.
“They need to get their head around the fact that independent activities have a purpose – to practice what they’ve learnt – not just as a distraction while one student gets individual attention. We used to think ‘They’re only five – we can’t push them’, but they are capable of so much more.”
Ms Goldstein said the success of the program was linked to the level of teacher enthusiasm.
A large amount of planning and resources were needed, especially guided readers, because they moved through them so fast.
“This is all about creating a lovely experience that school is fun and learning is joyous,” she said. “It’s a long haul to Year 12, so we find a pathway for each child and make that pathway purposeful.”
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