When school principal Manisha Gazula changed how her students were learning to read, she began an entirely new system which made her an icon of literacy learning.
Manisha Gazula is the principal of Marsden Road Public School in the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney.
When Manisha first came to the school, less than three per cent of its students were proficient in English reading and writing, which severely limited their options in life.
This was for many reasons - some children had never seen a book or held a pencil until they were ten years old, almost all of them didn't speak English at home, many came from refugee backgrounds, and Manisha was convinced that the conventional way of teaching literacy was not working.
So she introduced a new system that delivered much more explicit instruction in the elements of reading and writing.
It was a controversial change that made her first few years at Marsden Road tough, but the result was a radical improvement in student literacy, and now many other schools are following 'the Marsden Way'.
This episode of Conversations was produced by Meggie Morris. Executive Producer was Carmel Rooney.
It explores literacy rates, Australian education system, NSW education system, public schooling in NSW, state schools, private schools, learning to read, my child doesn't like reading, Indian Australians, career change, motherhood, migrating to Australia, NAPLAN, standardised testing, books, ESL, English as a second language, the Australian curriculum, Marsden method, explicit instruction.
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