As part of Noel Pearson’s Welfare Reform Trial in Cape York, MULTILIT is providing a range of interventions and programs in association with Cape York Partnerships, funded by the Commonwealth Government over the years 2008-2011. The aim of the project is to ‘bridge the gap’ in indigenous literacy levels so that aboriginal students are, on average, achieving at, or at least close to, grade level in terms of their reading skills. Following two successful MULTILIT pilot projects in the remote community of Coen, since 2008 MULTILIT has also been working in the communities of Mossman Gorge, Hopevale, Aurukun as well as continuing work in Coen.
The project provides a MULTILIT Tutorial Centre within each school in the four sites; embeds MULTILIT instructional practices across the school by providing professional development to teaching staff within each school; provides for an after school community Reading Club as part of the MULTILIT Tutorial Centre; and provides support to transition to school programs in terms of pre-reading and language development in feeder pre-schools.
The MULTILIT Tutorial Centres provide intensive instruction in reading and related skills to 12 students from Years 3-7 at any one time in a morning program (for three hours). In an afternoon session, a further 8 low-progress students from Years 1-2 are accommodated for a one hour intensive session of MINILIT. Therefore, 20 students at any one time will access the MULTILIT Tutorial Centre for a two-term program, on average.
Embedded MULTILIT practices within school classrooms help address the needs of those not included in the intensive MULTILIT Tutorial Centre program and help students who have ‘graduated’ from the intensive MULTILIT program consolidate their gains. This is achieved by training EQ teachers to deliver MULTILIT and similarly effective instructional programs in regular classrooms.
The MULTILIT Tutorial Centres also provide a focus for, and supervision of, an after-school ‘Reading Club’ for four afternoons per week for one hour each day. This program is intended to help create a love of books and reading, providing a community environment where parents are assisted in helping their children to read at home.
It is anticipated that the work at the preschool and early years level will result in fewer students requiring intensive MULTILIT support over time and it is hoped that the embedded MULTILIT approaches will provide the necessary support within the regular classroom over time.
Results to date are encouraging. As an example, in one site, students who were more than 4 years behind in reading at the commencement of their MULTILIT program made gains of nearly two years in reading accuracy in less than two school terms of instruction. When these students were followed up five months later (having received no further specific instruction in MULTILIT) these gains had improved by a further 7 months of reading age. These students had started to ‘make up lost time in literacy’.
MULTILIT has a team of instructors and consultants on the Cape, as well as a project management team in Sydney. The Project Directors are Professor Kevin Wheldall and Dr Robyn Beaman, supported by Dr Alison Madelaine and Dr Saskia Kohnen.