Short Courses

The Science of Reading: Translating research to classroom practice

Have you ever wondered how the human brain translates these squiggles and dots on a page into sounds and spoken words? Part of what we know is that learning to read is a complex neurological process that humans have taken 1000's of year to figure out.  Despite this, we expect children to achieve this in the first few years of school.

This three-day course is designed to bridge the gap between research and practice and make explicit how evidence-based models of reading have determined the essential components required for the human brain to efficiently build a reading circuit and for a brain to learn to automatically recognise words.

Why this course is for you

The saying "When we know better, we do better" is often used to describe any practice that evolves in light of research.

The term 'Science of Reading' refers to the research that reading experts, over the last 50 years, have conducted on how we learn to read. At times, this body of work has remained unknown and inaccessible to classroom practitioners, but recent publications translating this research into practical approaches have led teachers to reflect on older methods of reading instruction that were based on tradition and observation, not evidence.  What teachers know and do has the most impact on student achievement, so this course is designed to show what to teach, the instructional sequence and the most effective strategies to teach reading, all grounded in current research.

Course overview

This three day short course is delivered in face-face mode over several Saturdays at the ECU Mount Lawley Campus. The key areas covered in this course include:

• the nomenclature of reading such as phoneme/phonological awareness, phonics, smooth blending and orthographic mapping
• theoretical models of reading and how they explain reading and inform effective reading instruction
• the relationship between spoken and written language
• what is Structured Literacy and how to teach it
• when and how to teach systematic decoding instruction alongside decodable readers and authentic text
• the importance of rethinking teaching sight word lists, 'the blends', levelled readers and multi-cueing strategies

Course Details

Dates: Saturday 17 May, 7 June & 28 June 2025.

Location: ECU Mount Lawley campus.

Time: 9am – 3pm registrations are from 8.30am.

Cost: $1091.00 including GST (includes morning tea, lunch, workbooks, reading materials and case studies).

10% discount is offered to ECU alumni and for multiple bookings from the same organisation. Please contact education_shortcourses@ecu.edu.au to access your discount code prior to paying online.
Group bookings cannot be processed online. To pay by invoice please contact education_shortcourses@ecu.edu.au 

About the facilitator

This course has been written and coordinated by Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond AM and aligns with the EDU6651 Science of Reading unit in the Master of Education course and the Graduate Certificate of Education course at ECU. Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond AM  is acknowledged as a leader in the field of reading and received an Order of Australia (AM) in 2019 for her significant contribution to tertiary education and the community. She is currently providing professional learning and instructional coaching across a range of schools for the $21 million dollar Kimberley Schools Project (2017-2022) in Western Australia. In 2021, Lorraine commenced work on a similar project supporting schools with Catholic Education, Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn.

"The three days were without doubt the best Professional Learning I have
done in recent times. Each session was extremely engaging and helped
to bridge the gap between research and practice. I always left feeling
motivated to make change happen (and read more) because when we
know better, we do better" - Beth Hutchinson

Register your interest

We invite you to register your interest in this course by email: education_shortcourses@ecu.edu.au