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This article presents the outcomes of a study conducted in Victoria, Australia, that recognised teachers' knowledge and understanding of phonics teaching, and early literacy acquisition processes more generally. In total, 45 teachers and 220 students from the 18 focus schools who engaged in the reform initiative agreed to participate in this study. The questions posed considered understandings associated with the professional learning programme and processes that support the implementation of the phonics teaching and the impact this had on students' literacy learning. We share the data used to map teachers' stories of change and practice and some of the key factors, including structures, practices and attitudes, that influenced the implementation. The impact on students' reading and writing outcomes throughout the reform process are also reported. Combined, the findings indicate that the teaching of phonic knowledge, integrated into rich contexts for learning, contributed to improvements in teaching and students' early literacy skills. Furthermore, this study fills an important and common missing gap in professional learning as it explores implementation processes and practice in the classroom. The results inform continuing reform efforts and targeted research necessary to refine phonics teaching practice and further advance students' literacy outcomes. Keywords Early literacy * Reading * Writing * Phonics * Professional learning, 1 Introduction There is widespread agreement about the importance of phonic knowledge and code-based literacy practices in early years classrooms (Castles et al., 2018). As such, it is essential that [...]

This exploratory study investigated Vietnamese secondary students' engagement in a sequence of detecting, correcting, and rewriting tasks, and examined the factors affecting their engagement and/or disengagement in the process. The study draws on the principles of task-based instruction, involving eight mixed-ability groups (n = 31), and was designed to address student engagement with feedback-correction practices that has rarely been discussed in previous research and has therefore remained largely underexplored, especially in the context of Vietnam. Theoretical concepts of behavioral, cognitive, and social engagement were used to analyze data from audio recordings of students' interactions and their written responses to open-ended questions. The analysis of data showed that the eight groups engaged behaviorally, socially, and cognitively in the process, although their engagement varied according to the learning tasks, the teacher's intervention, peer support, English ability, and types of gaps. Findings from the eight-week intervention suggest teachers should consider factors which determine student engagement with feedback-correction practices. By offering students opportunities to act on specific language issues in their writing through detecting and correcting gaps and rewriting the corrected texts, engagement with feedback-correction practices can be useful in fostering accuracy development. This qualitative multiple-case study contributes new insights to the field by operationalizing the sequence of feedback-correction through collaborative learning to deeply understand students' multidimensional engagement in the process from which implications for L2 writing and further research are discussed.

For many Indigenous children living in remote communities, the prerequisites to achieving strong language and learning outcomes include the maintenance of their first languages and progress in learning English as an additional language. This paper reports on data from a Linkage study conducted with families at two Families as First Teachers (FaFT) playgroups in two remote Northern Territory communities. The data highlight the ways parents and carers encouraged very young children to engage in home languages as a foundation on which to develop skills in English during play and book reading activities. Transcripts of mother-child book reading and play sessions and reflections of FaFT Family Liaison Officers are examined to explore the language interactions and the strategies used by mothers to support children's multilingual learning. The data highlight the importance of early childhood teaching and learning that honours children's linguistic and cultural resources and prioritises families' aspirations for children's multilingual language learning.

This study investigated school connectedness, student engagement, academic grades, and student affect. Factor analyses of 331 adolescent students (Years 7, 9, and 11 in Australia), validated a four-factor model of school engagement. The factors revealed in the analyses were described as (1) future and task focus, (2) planning and motivation, (3) positive roles and models, and (4) positive social engagement. Cluster analyses revealed two typologies of students: a thriving group scoring significantly higher on all four factors than a striving group. There was a consistent number of students in each group across Years 7, 9 and 11. Compared to students in the striving group, on average, students in the thriving group scored significantly higher on grades (i.e., mathematics and English). Moreover, students in the thriving group were significantly higher on content and excited affects, and significantly less depressed and distressed compared to the students in the striving group. Limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed.

Although the effect of teacher and peer feedback on writing improvement in the field of second language teaching has been discussed in scholarly research for several decades, student engagement with both forms of feedback integrated into a sequence of discovery, correction and revision remains under-researched. This study investigates the impact of feedback during a teaching sequence to support students' writing development, along with students' engagement in each phase of the teaching design. Drawing on Vygotsky's concept of guided learning, the teaching sequence was developed to prioritise collaborative group work and address students' limited engagement with feedback-correction and revision practices. The sequence was administered to 31 Vietnamese secondary students over eight weeks, from which an exploratory method was adopted. The analysis of data from audio recordings and groups' rewritten texts exhibited varied levels of student engagement. Importantly, the findings demonstrate the potential for integrating forms of feedback into the correcting sequence through group-based tasks to maximise students' learning.

In response to recent reforms to English language education in secondary schools in Iran, this study investigated how a small collaborative professional learning community prompted shifts in teachers' practices. The study relied on Engeström's professional learning intervention to examine the practices of three junior high school teachers. Through the analysis of teacher observations and interviews, the findings revealed that the teachers' collaboration and engagement, and the time devoted to review and reflection on their teaching, encouraged minor changes in the teachers' practices that aligned with the reform agenda. The study has implications for professional learning in Iran and similar contexts. It informs a need for a movement from top-down professional learning programs to more collaborative approaches to teacher education when the aim is to address reform-driven educational changes.

With the explicit goal of today's school students being active citizens, critically engaged and democratically minded over the long course of their schooling, the authors of this article focus on the notions of rhetoric and, relatedly, rhetorical agency. While these notions are increasingly understood in secondary school contexts, their application in primary and early-childhood settings is under-explored. We define and propose rhetorical agency as a purposeful focus of school literacy practice and pedagogy, illustrating this with four examples in which rhetorical agency can be supported in the primary classroom. These relate to research we have undertaken or supported around children learning bilingually, students engaging in place-based investigations, rich text use, and critical literacy in the early years. Ultimately, we invite consideration of how primary classrooms and public schooling, and more specifically the practice of language and literacy education, might be enhanced expressly through a rhetorical lens. Keywords Rhetoric * Agency * Literacy * Pedagogy * Primary schooling, 1 Introduction: a rhetorical lens In this paper, we make a case for the concept of rhetoric, as a 'new' organising and framing principle for language and literacy studies in [...]

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the impact of early health risks on young Aboriginal children's attendance in playgroups and their early learning outcomes. Design: The study used a cross-sectional design to identify associations between children's early health characteristics, their attendance at a Families as First Teachers (FaFT) playgroup and their early learning outcomes. Setting: A total of 128 Aboriginal children from two remote Northern Territory (NT) communities attending FaFT playgroups participated in the study. Method: Health data were coded as risk factors and associated with children's attendance and learning outcome data. Results: Children in the cohort experienced relatively high rates of health risks: ear infections (otitis media, 57%), anaemia (37%), skin infections (28%), low birthweight (22%), low weight for age (19%) and a high proportion were born to teenage mothers (26%). However, these rates were lower than previously recorded rates for Aboriginal children in remote NT communities. Despite the presence of multiple health risks, low weight for age was the only risk factor found to be negatively associated with children's learning outcomes (language skills) and only two health risks (teenage motherhood and lower child haemoglobin levels) were negatively associated with children's attendance at playgroup. Most children (65%) experienced one or two health risks during the study and no significant associations were found between the number of health risks experienced and children's attendance or learning outcomes. Conclusion: The study highlights the importance of culturally responsive, evidence-based and integrated health and education programmes within remote Aboriginal Australian communities as a means to mitigate risks to poor learning and development outcomes.

There is growing recognition that literacy learning takes place in the years prior to formal schooling and that young children develop literacy-like behaviours through exposure to interactions in shared contexts in which literacy is a component. Despite this, there are few assessments that measure the very early literacy skills that children develop before 36 months of age. This article reports on the design and validation of a new instrument -- the Early Literacy Engagement Assessment (ELEA). This tool was developed to provide insights into the impact of Conversational Reading, a key pedagogical strategy implemented at Families as First Teachers playgroups, on young children's early receptive and expressive vocabulary and literacy skills. The instrument was trialled with 104 children living in locations across Melbourne, Victoria, and 39 Aboriginal children living in remote communities in the Northern Territory. The trial process was undertaken in two phases: (1) a technical assessment to test item consistency, characteristics and placement and (2) concurrent validity testing against items from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-2 tool. The findings from the trial and validation process indicate that overall the ELEA discriminates well between children of high and low ability, and it is a useful tool in the authentic assessment of expressive and receptive vocabulary skills in young children.

Despite the recent emphasis on oral English language proficiency in the Iranian education system, the teaching of oral communication remains a challenge for secondary school English language teachers. In this article, we suggest that this, in part, relates to the continued emphasis on literacy practices. The article explores the approach taken by three Iranian junior high school English language teachers to teaching oracy during a summer school task-based intervention. Data were gathered through observations and interviews, and third generation activity theory from Engeström (1996; Engeström 2001) was used to analyse teachers' practices. Findings revealed that, while trialling aspects of task-based pedagogies, the teachers' attention to oracy increased. However, they retained a strong traditional focus on literacy teaching, which had an effect on their approach to oracy and also appeared to constrain their movement towards less-controlled spoken language. This small-scale study offers insights into approaches to oracy teaching while employing task-based pedagogies in foreign language contexts like Iran. In this context, English literacy has been the historical focus, the Roman alphabet is new for the students, and there is often limited exposure to oracy practices outside the classroom context (Sadeghi and Richards, 2015).

Studies of early writing recognize that learning to write is a complex process requiring students to attend to the composition of the text and the transcription of the ideas. The research discussed here examined six dimensions of early writing--text structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and handwriting--and how each dimension relates to message construction. Specifically, this research aimed to consider the relationships between the authorial and secretarial aspects of writing, in order to support formative assessment and teaching. The research also considered whether there were underlying clusters of students who were engaging with the various dimensions in differing ways as they learned to craft texts. The analysis of data showed a clear conceptualization of the authorial and secretarial aspects of writing, as reflected in a tool for analysing writing. The three authorial dimensions and three secretarial dimensions of writing were well defined statistically. Three clusters of students were identified as having varying degrees of competence across the six dimensions of writing: a group with consistently low scores; a group with consistently medium scores; and a consistently high-scoring group. Attainment for SES groups was reflected in the writing dimensions, and gender differences were also evident; however, the variance explained by gender and SES was small to moderate. The study has implications for supporting students who are at present struggling with the challenges of early writing. The results suggest that when teachers address the dimensions of the writing process in combination, based on an informed analysis of students' needs, they can focus their teaching and select instructional approaches to increase the efficacy of their teaching.

The university sector was hit hard by COVID-19 in early 2020 with global calls for universities to lockdown. The teacher education sector in most countries, including Australia, had not anticipated the shift to off-campus teaching of such a massive scale and the sector was not well prepared for the challenge. This paper reports how the Australian education sector responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and details how one Australian university implemented a number of innovations changing the mode of teaching and move to a fully online environment for all initial teacher education programmes. The innovations included the conversion of all face to face course work units into online units, including synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities. The initial impact of the innovations on pre-service teachers was captured through systematic measures of engagement with the online content. Using these measures, we interviewed four academics who were identified as supporting high levels of interaction. We were keen to understand what contributed to fostering high levels of interaction of pre-service teachers. Key lessons learnt from the analysis are discussed with a hope that these practices might benefit others looking for ways to provide high-quality teacher education programmes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

New approaches to support the early learning for young Indigenous children are important to government policies across Australia. This study explores whether the Abecedarian Approach Australia (3a) intervention, with strong cultural adaptations, can boost young Aboriginal children's early language and learning skills, prior to preschool. Participants in this study were Aboriginal children attending playgroups, "Families as First Teachers," in school settings in two remote communities in the Northern Territory. Implementation data on two components (Conversational Reading and LearningGames) of the Abecedarian Approach Australia (3"a") intervention are reported, and the level of exposure the children had to the programme during the study period is analysed. Child outcomes were assessed on the Brigance Early Childhood Screen II for 149 children aged from 24 to 56 months. Children's language and early learning were associated with intervention dosage. Higher exposure to Conversational Reading and LearningGames predicted stronger language and overall development for young children. This study demonstrates that this intervention can be delivered effectively in playgroups in remote settings and is a meaningful and robust strategy to support early childhood learning, with potential to improve educational outcomes for young Aboriginal children in remote communities.

Over the past decade, researchers have called for a reconceptualisation of school connectedness. A review of literature between 1990 and 2016 was completed to define school connectedness and identified four factors: attending, belonging, engaging, and flow. The review of the published literature from 1990 to 2016 that related to the four factors was undertaken to define each of these terms and their relevance to school connectedness. Subsequently, based on the four factors, a sequential, four-level model of school connectedness was proposed. The model suggests a progression from minimal connection to a deep level of acculturation and shared meaning relevant for adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. It is argued that the four factors form the foundation for engagement and suggests the possibility of an experience of flow as a result of a student's connectedness with school. The literature on which the model is based draws together social, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive terms central to learning. The purpose of the review is to move beyond individual factors to propose an explanation for the sequence of graduated connection. Practically, the model provides a template for establishing the student's current experience of school to facilitate interventions to optimise connectedness with school.

This paper examines the oral language resources that enhance children's reading and comprehension processes. Using data from a study of 16 children, the microanalysis of the three more successful readers, identified salient factors from the individual children's learning profiles that were observed as associated with their positive comprehension outcomes. The results indicate vocabulary knowledge, syntactic competence and an understanding of narrative grammar as important to the concurrent development of children's oral language abilities commensurate with text reading. The study emphasises the facilitative role of oral language to early reading acquisition processes, the need for teachers' detailed knowledge of children's oral language competencies and improved access to assessment tools that capture a range of complex language skills to inform classroom practice.

Using video as a mode of data generation in research involving young children and their teachers has become a more common practice in educational research. Digital video recordings provide the opportunity to capture the complexity of interactions that occur between people, time, space and objects, however, working with this methodology and form of data can be complex and challenging. This paper focuses on the use of video as a methodology to understand teachers' tacit knowledge of practice that supports young children's oral language. This study explores four specific viewpoints that have been employed to investigate teachers' practice: (1) camera, (2) teacher, (3) researcher and (4) peers. From our analysis of the affordances of the differing viewpoints, we propose that what can be 'seen' is directly impacted by the understandings of those involved in the research process in relation to data capture, viewing and analysing the data. We argue that these viewpoints are not neutral or mutually exclusive rather they should be considered complementary and supplementary in building a comprehensive understanding of teachers' tacit knowledge of literacy practice.

The aim of this paper is to describe the application of the adaptive change model (ACM) to the school context, and provide rubrics for the use the model to evaluate student or teacher preparedness for change, and enhance the decision-making process at the school community, classroom, and individual student levels. Transformational learning is a philosophy that conceptualises change as central in the teaching and learning dynamic and provides the foundation for understanding how the ACM is applied to teaching and learning. The second aim of this paper is to propose how the eight factors of the ACM provide a template for interventions in schools. The eight factors (five processes and three supports) of the model define ways of prompting change, the responsiveness to curriculum materials and learning, and the processes that facilitate change and learning. Two rubrics to forward-map the change process towards learning based on this model are provided for future practice and research. The model provides a means of operationalising and monitoring progress for individual students from the teachers' and eventually the students' perspectives.

This paper highlights some of the enduring dichotomies that prevail in Australia regarding the most effective way to teach literacy. These contrastive positions are often used by policymakers and the media to construct the view that teachers are failing to teach literacy well. In uncovering some of the polemical positions taken on literacy education, the authors argue that rather than an either/or approach, effective literacy teaching for diverse learners involves teachers in crafting a pedagogy that embraces multiple forms of literate practice for complex texts and times. (Contains 3 tables.)

Narrative inquiry has long been respected as a qualitative approach to researching the lived experiences of participants. Used widely in educational research the approach enables insights into the practices, perspectives and preferences of teachers, most often considering a small number of participants within a close circle of influence. In response to the challenge of evaluating a sector wide literacy reform initiative we were interested to ascertain if narrative inquiry might be used to explore a large sample size, over broad geographical spaces at different points in time as teachers worked collaboratively to explore the teaching of Phonics in Context. We collected teachers' stories via digital platforms and keeping true to the principles of narrative inquiry, deliberately addressed its key epistemological components, namely, relationality, temporality, landscapes and competing stories through the data analysis process. The findings from the study indicate that narrative inquiry at scale can be a cost-effective way to collect, analyse and report on the experiences of teachers while adding a critical lens to policy and or pedagogical implementation and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In today's society, a growing body of literature attests to the importance of young children's early digital literacy skills in their home environments and how acquisition of these digital literacy skills relates to their future learning and digital literacy. Objectives: Research on young children's digital literacy practices at home was reviewed to explore the positive and negative influences on early learning. This is important due to the children's rapid uptake of online digital technologies over the past decade. Methods: Peer‐reviewed research articles on home digital literacy practices of children (aged 0–8 years old) published between 2010 and 2021 from four education databases were carefully selected based upon pre‐determined criteria and examined using content analysis. Results and Conclusion: A high proportion of studies (29 of the 31; 93.5%) demonstrated significant benefits of young children gaining a range of skills, including digital operational, early literacy and language, socio‐emotional, and STEM, through the use of digital technologies at home. Five of the 31 (16.12%) studies reported negative effects of digital technologies in the home context, including distraction, aggressive behaviour, and false self‐confidence. Tablets and smartphone use gained greater momentum in the home context, especially between 2015 and 2021, and there was a positive shift in parental mediation, family involvement, and the children's home digital literacy practices. Implications: By leveraging children's acquisition of digital literacy skills in the home and taking into account the sociocultural context, we can enhance young children's preparation for the future and provide opportunities for skill development across various learning domains. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: The literature shows use of tablets in the home by children have gained momentum.Parents have different attitudes towards using digital technologies in the home context.Parents have used different mediation strategies to control, supervise and support their children's home digital literacy practices. What this paper adds: Within the past decade, parents have extended their mediation strategies to support their children's home digital literacy practices.Young children move from early digital literacy to proficient digital literacy within the home.Home digital literacy practices can foster important skills in young children such as language and literacy, operational, socio‐emotional, and STEM.Artificial intelligence devices such as smart robots are extending children's home digital literacy practices. Implications for practice and/or policy: Understanding the sociocultural differences of young children can help parents, teachers, and policymakers to facilitate digital literacy skill acquisition.Fostering young children's basic language literacy, operational, socio‐emotional, and STEM skills through technology use in the home before formal education is essential.Extending young children's home digital literacy practices to other contexts such as the classroom is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we argue for a revision of the knowledge, skills and competencies of school psychologists and specialist teachers. Evidence-based practice of psychologists and teachers, the accountability movement, and calls for improved service delivery have led to changes in the practice of both professions. The changes in technology and the growing complexity of service delivery have converged, leading to changes in the practice of testing, assessment, and evaluation in schools. This has led to calls for increased competencies of teachers. Testing, assessment and evaluation have previously been a central practice of educational psychologists but it is now expected to be a key competence of all teachers and other professionals working in schools. This inevitably changes the balance of practices of both teachers and educational psychologists in schools as roles converge, making collaboration and joint consultation best practice within a response to intervention framework. In view of the growing demands, changes and possibilities, we propose a three tier model of assessment functions that includes educational psychologists, special educators and teachers. The proposal is inclusive and offers possibilities for a more collaborative and participatory relationship between these professions in school settings and a stronger emphasis in pre-service curriculum on testing and interpretation and its utility in effective intervention.

Provision for students learning English as an additional language (EAL) frequently overlooks the linguistic resources these children bring to the classroom. This is despite international research that highlights the facilitative links between support of the home language and the acquisition of new languages. This article reports on a longitudinal study of Karen--English bilingual learning in the early years at one culturally and linguistically diverse primary school. It analyses classroom observation and student achievement data, work samples, staff interviews, parent questionnaires, and student self-assessments to build a rich evidence base that attests to the advantages afforded by plurilingual opportunities in what are often staunchly monolingual classroom contexts. The importance of additive language policies and pedagogies for EAL students in mainstream classes is reinforced by this study, and a framework is proposed whereby bilingual education focusing on community languages can be successfully operationalised.

Writing is a key area of literacy in the early years, however writing receives less research attention than reading despite its impact on students' learning generally, and literacy development specifically. Writing skills have also been shown to be quite stable--good writers in the early years stay good writers in the later years. Therefore it is critical to better understand the aspects of writing central to development that might support teaching and learning. In this paper we share findings from the analysis of 500 writing samples from 250 students. The students were in Year 1, which is the second year of school in New South Wales and Victoria, Australia. Samples were collected at two points in time (approximately four to five months apart) and analysed using a writing analysis tool developed by the authors in an earlier stage of the study. The results reported and discussed here show levels of attainment and changes in students' writing in the areas of text structure, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and handwriting, and also highlight relationships between these dimensions as students develop increasing control over writing. Socio-educational advantage, gender differences, and findings specific to children who learn English as an additional language are also reported. The findings have implications for practice in the early years of schooling. They also offer a conceptualisation of students' early writing based on an analysis process that integrates the authorial and secretarial dimensions of writing and provides teachers with relevant data to plan instruction.

Writing is a complex process, and this complexity poses particular challenges when researchers and teachers approach the task of analysing young students' writing samples. This paper outlines a program of research undertaken to develop a writing analysis tool. The tool is designed to map shifts over time in the range of skills and competencies young writers use to communicate intended meanings and messages using standard writing conventions. Writing samples (N = 3193) were collected from 1799 students, in the two most populous states of Australia in 2010. The close analysis of 210 samples by four members of the research team supported the development of the tool. The tool and its application revealed key areas of learning and the current range of Year One students' writing in these areas. Presented in detail are two dimensions of children's writing as illustrative of the relevance and functionality of the tool to practice. This tool provides a research-based approach to the interpretation of students' learning about writing. While designed for the purpose of research, the tool also has the potential to help classroom teachers capture shifts in students' writing, assist teachers to provide feedback to students, and support teaching decisions.

The development of oral language and specifically increased control over literate discourse is critical to students' ability to create and comprehend texts in the early years of schooling and beyond. For students with home languages that differ from the forms of language used in school, the development of oral language through carefully designed teacher-student interactions has particular importance in assisting students to access literacy skills and to display the knowledge required for learning in educational settings. This paper reports a study of two teachers providing an early literacy intervention to two Indigenous students and the techniques used in conversational interactions to scaffold oral language and to compose texts for writing. The conversations are closely analysed to reveal patterns in teacher talk that support students' appropriation of literate discourse. The findings indicate that careful attention to students' utterances and the contingent scaffolding of language by teachers, who clearly understand the ways that context-embedded language can be used as a bridge to the context reduced language of school, supports students' development of language for literacy learning.

This paper introduces the Young Learners' Project, which is a large scale longitudinal study that aims to identify a number of factors associated with positive outcomes in literacy in the first year of school: the role of the preschool teacher, home life and child characteristics. In particular, it presents the design of one sub-study within the larger project that is focusing on the beliefs, theoretical constructs and literacy practices of 25 preschool teachers. The paper deliberates the methodological choices of a group of researchers who set out to represent in diverse ways, and for diverse purposes, the layered meanings inherent in preschool teachers' beliefs and practices in relation to early literacy development. In particular, through reference to illustrative extracts of a single case analysis, the paper explores the possibilities and complexities of adopting mixed methods and in doing so, responds to a call for researchers to make explicit the purposes and challenges of case study methodologies.

This paper examines how literacy is defined and enacted by teachers in early childhood programmes pointing to the differing ways views of early literacy impact practice. It is argued here that early literacy development during the years before school is dependent on children's experiences of having literacy activities modelled around them and the ways in which adults include them in their everyday literacy interactions. Early childhood teachers reveal differing understandings of early literacy during the years before formal school and this impacts their decisions concerning literacy activities and practice within their preschool rooms. Three early childhood teachers are presented here, through video clips and video-stimulated interviews around their literacy activities with preschool children. They demonstrate a range of practice which is shown to depend on their views of young children's literacy development. These vignettes have implications for further professional discussion and learning. (Contains 1 note.)

The aim of the research reported here was to investigate why a percentage of students experience continued difficulty in literacy learning while participating in Reading Recovery. It was hypothesized that this is to do with particular aspects of teacher-learner interactions. Accordingly the study used ethnographic methodology to describe teacher-learner interactions generally and to then examine selected dimensions of the interaction between particular cohorts of students and their teachers. Specifically investigated were the characteristics of this group, mapping students' learning trajectory, and identifying key points and events that impact on teacher decision-making processes with regard to student learning. The learners who participated in this study were 10 children identified as being at risk of literacy failure. Their participation in one-to-one literacy support resulted in six of the children making considerable progress, with the other four identified as requiring ongoing support beyond the short-term intervention provided by Reading Recovery. The reasons for the successful outcome for the six learners are related to the ways that their teachers orchestrated positive reading and writing opportunities through closely focused verbal support. While this "helping talk" appeared to be decisive in the six successful cases, it was productive but inadequate in the remaining four. (Contains 13 figures and 3 tables.)