Simple techniques – huge benefits

Giving a child a good start in life is not difficult. And it is not time-consuming. You just have to know what to do. What is not done in the early years becomes harder later on, and gaps in early learning get harder to compensate for. All parents would like their children to do well. Here is some help to make sure you get it right. More

Our strategies

The Early Reading Play School uses a unique blend of teaching strategies that includes:

Our results

The Early Reading Play School graduates young early learners who thrive from their first day in school. They have moved beyond ‘learning to read’ and reached the stage of ‘reading to learn’.

Because they have so enjoyably mastered the challenge of learning to read they have become self-starters, and range across their school’s various curriculum areas with enthusiasm.

Graduates of the Early Reading Play School are very often top of their class. Almost without exception they are in the top group of students. They can be safely predicted to be top performers in Year 12, and to have maximum career choice, with the maximum chance of a happy and successful life. A good start snowballs.

Even if they have only done one level of the program the benefits are clear, obvious and beyond measure – a child who is self-confident, recognizes what is happening at school, able to deal with anything in front of them, and justifiably happy.

Social implications

When every child is taken through this program, we will have raised IQ levels across the board. We will begin to see what it might be like to live in a ‘clever country’, and everyone will have a lot more pleasure in life.

As a bonus, remedial education will be a thing of the past, a strange idea, from the old days when people didn’t know how to get every child to do well. More

How does it work?

	We enroll children who are ‘over three and under five’, and recommend children start as soon as possible in the six months following their third birthday.
	Parent and child attend together for a one-hour class every two weeks, and parents need to back up the class lesson at home with 15-20 minutes a day of follow-up games and activities.
	There are 10 classes at each level of the program, and four levels that can be taken. You enroll for a bracket of 10 classes at a time, and you can decide how many of the four levels you want to do.
	Doing one semester (or level) will provide a child with a solidly grounded understanding of the reading process, and some skill in actually reading simplified text e.g. “Jeff went up the cliff”, or “The duck had a swim” By the end of the third semester children read unsimplified (normal English) text fluently and with comprehension. Level Four is ‘cream on the cake’. Every single child should do at least the first level. If they go beyond Level One the benefits just keep on multiplying. More TOP

What parents say about the program

	My daughter was eager to learn, and I didn't really know how to start.... The school gave a basis for how to start.
	This course has given my son a lot of confidence. After six months he can read simple sentences, his drawings have got more details, ...and he is writing quite clearly....He'll sit down and work on his own just because he is so interested......I've found it great.
	My daughter is very proud of herself, and very happy to be able to read what we get from the program and also just to be able to pick out words in her environment, everywhere around her. She really enjoys it.
	My daughter was always pestering me to learn, and we bought just about every sort of book you can get. Some were too hard, and some were too simple, and she was bored with all of them. Then we saw an ad for the school at the local library. I was in awe that there was somebody out there addressing our needs. Now she can read, and we have both really enjoyed it.…
	Even though my older children, who are six and eight, are doing quite well in school, I've seen how the reading hasn't progressed so well as the other areas. And I had a feeling that phonics was the way to go, and they hadn't been taught that way... Now after six months of going to the reading school with me, my youngest boy, not yet four, is already writing. He knows all the sounds (of the letters of the alphabet), he can read simple sentences, and he's really proud he can read words. He is always talking about words he can spell, and he really enjoys it, and so do I.
	After ten lessons, my daughter can now read simple sentences, her drawings are quite detailed, and she's actually started writing, and it's legible. Her confidence has been boosted, and the childcare lady says that she now speaks up for herself at kindy, where six months ago she wouldn't say boo......We do fifteen to twenty minutes together every night after her bath - it's a routine. And she enjoys it.
	I went with my little girl to one of the classes. I guess when we started the course she didn't really know how to read a word, to sound a word out. But after doing the first semester and spending fifteen minutes a day I find she can read a simple sentence and she can sound the words out easily.... TOP

Founder’s profile

Glynne Sutcliffe grew up in Melbourne, where she studied for and obtained an Honours degree in History, and a Diploma of Education from the University of Melbourne,

She subsequently obtained a Masters degree in South Asian Languages and Civilisations from the University of Chicago.

She has taught in High Schools in Victoria and South Australia, and has tutored and lectured at the Universities of Sydney, Flinders and LaTrobe, in Ancient History and Sociology respectively.

She has lived in India and France as well as the United States, and is acquainted with the academic world overseas as well as in Australia.

All three of her own children were academically very successful throughout their school and university years, and all are now practicing doctors.

In teaching across the secondary and tertiary sectors she came to believe that most of the students she encountered were under-achieving in terms of their potential, and that the high achievers were those whose parents got them off to a good start in the pre-school years.

She set up and taught the first classes for the Early Reading Play School at her home in Adelaide in 1993.

Between 1993 and 2003 she taught classes right across the Adelaide metropolitan region, as well as in the city center.

Since almost without exception the graduates of the Early Reading Play School program have gone on to do extremely well in Reception and the Primary school grades, she is now working to set up a maximum number of Early Reading Play School centers across the country.

History of the school

The Early Reading Play School is an historical accident, arising from the personal biography of its founder. Glynne Sutcliffe brought an unusual academic background, and an unusual level of personal commitment to the task of establishing a highly innovative early childhood program.

She believes that it was only because she came into the early childhood arena as an outsider that she was able to set up a program that works so well. She started classes in 1993 without realizing at the time that she was stepping into a minefield, where commonsense and intellectual responsibility had long fled the scene - replaced by ideological positions and educational practices that were more comfortable for staff than helpful to children.

She began with the idea of teaching the local children on Saturdays, while she re-wrote a differently angled history of the world between Mondays and Fridays. But as numbers grew, and classes spilled into the working week the demands of the school became imperative, and all other projects were set aside. By 2002 the demands on her time were too great to sustain alone any longer, and the school was recessed for restructuring. The network of centers now being developed is the result of this restructuring process.

Newsletter

Since 1993 the school has published occasional newsletters with solid theoretical content, and, rather than letting this go into an historical dustbin, we are making it available here, for two reasons: first, because it has all lasted very well and is still valid and useful; second, because it is nice to prove that we have been right all along. As well, texts of lectures have been archived, for the same reasons – the ideas are still useful, we have been right, and it is nice to document the fact. Click the More... link to go to the archive pages.

Mark Latham's enthusiasm for early reading displayed a familiarity with George Bush's education reform agenda. New York’s Mayor Bloomberg and his Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are also enthusiastic educational reformers – with their mistakes chronicled in the City Journal by Sol Stern! England has had a National Strategy in place for several years to get all their kids up to speed in reading – its problems are also worth understanding.

There is in fact such a plethora of news that unless we acquire a person interested in running a clippings service we can only hope to keep you updated here with really significant developments. But there is enough happening for it to be worth your while to ‘watch this space’. More

Events Calendar

Lectures will be given in Melbourne in September 2006 that will be of interest to all parents of under-five children.

Topics will include why parents need to know about early intervention programs (and why they are not just for “other people’s children” ), why Australians should familiarize themselves with the way United States and England have been dealing with literacy issues, practical steps that parents can take to get their child off to a good start in school, and how the Early Reading Play School can help them achieve their goals.

For information about locations and times of lectures, please contact us.

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News

This space is reserved for current news of educational interest.

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Theoretical issues

In the US, sparked by the No Child Left Behind legislation of January 2002, and beginning substantially in the Fall term 2003, new reading programs have been set up in almost every locality across the country.

These are predominantly ‘early intervention’ programs for targeted populations of ‘at risk’ children, but they exhibit a level of understanding of what needs to be available for children that is far in advance of what we see in Australia.

Here we have had an outbreak of the 1990’s, with warriors taking sides on the phonics / whole language split – again!!!! Click 'More' for the excruciating details. More

The Boy Problem

As far as boys are concerned all the indicators now show that they are doing much less well in school (a) than the girls and (b) than they used to do. The general conclusion by many observers is that the schools are now failing our boys.

Parents of boys therefore have a special need to understand how to ensure that their sons can do well in a system that is biased against them. More

The Education of Teachers

Teacher education has also been the subject of much discussion. Education faculties have for several decades emphasised teaching skills and processes over subject knowledge. The dominant approach has been to facilitate rather than teach.. It is being increasingly realised that the constructivist child centred approach to teaching has serious defects and that teachers need to take a more proactive role and place a greater focus on content delivery. More

General

There are a variety of other issues that are useful to understand in reasonable depth and are convassed in the General section. More

On the Lighter Side....

Sometimes laughter proves the point. Click here for a smile. More

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Advisory Board

There have always been individuals who were aware of one or other problematic aspect of the way we have been teaching our children, and how we could do it better. We are now building up an advisory team comprised of those who can offer specific inputs to the overall picture we have been developing.

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Supporters may also be Friends, but can also be people without the time for meetings, who are still willing to provide specific assistance to the school, either by offering specialized assistance of one kind or another, or by providing financial inputs, either tied or untied – for example by sponsoring a fraction of enrolments in this or that area with enrolment fee subsidies, by sponsoring guest lecturers, by running monthly parent-child read aloud weekend afternoon meetings, by sponsoring and/or organising major events, or supporting anything else that furthers the general goals of the school.

Linking pre-natal care of mothers, dietary advice, pet-keeping, general intellectual breadth, singing and music, second language provision, math classes, and so on to the specifics of reading skills acquisition would also be a very valuable contribution our work.

Philanthropist Alert

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Franchise Opportunity
Every new center needs a new teacher-owner.

Call or email the school (08 8270 3548, or glynnesutcliffe@internode.on.net), to find out how you can join in the grand plan to transform the intellectual careers of our children.

Given that there are always exceptional people who do not conform to set specifications, it may help you to know that we are looking for ex-high school or university teachers, who would like to get back to teaching for the sheer pleasure of it, but who would also appreciate the chance to work without bureaucratic interventions, and to earn a decent income having fun while doing good.

Franchises are becoming available in Melbourne shortly. Franchisees will be selected on the basis of their academic sophistication and teaching skills.

Economic structure and philosophy

The Early Reading Play School is set up as a small business network of independently owned and run centers for philosophic reasons. We have been approached by some people who had in mind to buy a franchise, and then employ a (low-waged) teacher to work for them to run the classes. We believe that teachers are professionals who have skills that ought to obtain economic acknowledgment, and that this acknowledgment cannot be obtained so long as they are employees. At the same time, we need the program to be faithfully followed, if we are to have the impact we seek. Franchising is the best available business model to achieve these twin outcomes – an independent owner-teacher who is committed to a specific curriculum and methodology.

Acknowledgments

Krystyna Court-Kowalski is the school's original artist. For some months when the development of the second, third and fourth levels of the program were being constructed, the arrangement was for Glynne to get up at 6am to write the text on a Sunday morning, while Krystyna drew the illustrations from 1.00pm in the afternoon.

Bob Owen put in a couple of years of solid help on a near daily basis after he retired from his management position in Telstra, and was especially useful in keeping things on track, e.g. with data base management, and developing, for instance, our current school signage.

Carol Stallion, before she left South Australia for the balmier climate of rural Queensland, also gave solid support and assistance in the day-to-day running of the school, as well as participating in setting up lecture evenings, suggesting useful efficiencies, and being generally supportive.

Bob Such, SA MP from the School's home base electorate of Fisher, gave a lot of encouragement in the establishment phase of the school's life, by providing office equipment support

Elwyn Crawford, and Leigh Carbines have provided real help in getting things under way in Melbourne. Amongst other things, Elwyn took full responsibility for organizing the school's first major public lecture in Melbourne. Elwyn is also an accomplished editorial advisor with whom the school has frequently consulted. Leigh has contributed many useful ideas as well as being a primary guide to potential locations for Melbourne centers.

Vivek Huilgol provided the computers and related equipment without which the school could not have functioned, as well as funding a six week research visit to the USA in 2001.

Chris Ashton contributed significantly in different ways and degrees to the project.

Our thanks also to Peter Hylton, our Webmaster.

Enrolling your child

Call - 08 8270 3548 - or
email - glynnesutcliffe@internode.on.net - the school, to find out if there is an Early Reading Play School near you, and to request an information pack. The information pack will include all nearby locations, a class schedule, some supportive information, and application details.

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Contact Us

Email : Glynne Sutcliffe
Phone : + 61 (0)8 8270 3548
Mail: PO Box 486, Blackwood SA 5051
Head Office : Main Road, Chandlers Hill, South Australia 5159

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