Ruth Shinoda: Head of ERO’s Education Evaluation Centre on the number of children starting school without knowing how to read or write

There are calls for less screen time and more conversations with children before they begin school. 

The Education Review Office research reveals too many children are starting school without knowing how to read and write. 

More than two-thirds of parents report their child had language difficulties before they started school last year. 

Head of ERO’s Education Evaluation Centre Ruth Shinoda told Mike Hosking that parents need to limit device use to boost learning. 

She says language is developed by talking to children, and they need to know words before learning to read and write them at school. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Education Review Office report shows half of parents aren't
getting vital information from the ecees. You know, the kindy's
about our child's language development, our language development, but a
COVID and there too much device time, all that stuff,
the usual business. Ero's Deputy Chief Executive Ruth Shanoda back
with us. Good morning, Funny the COVID aspect of this
work you've done, along with the screen time etc. Will
that do you think eventually wash through and we'll get

(00:23):
back to some level of normality and therefore an improvement
and language standards.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
What we think is it really depends on how much
we're going to be talking with our children. So with
COVID gone from the back in ec and we know
that a part of education can make a big difference,
and teachers are doing some really good practice. But as parents,
we also need to be getting our kids off screens
and talking with them more.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Right, But we did a lot of screen time allegedly
during COVID. Is that fixed? Do we know? Do we
have any idea or not?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
We don't know how much screens are currently being used.
But what we do know is that the more we
talk with children, the more the language they developed and
that's so critical because when they start school, they need
those works so they can learn to read and write
them without that language, those literacy really struggles.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Would they the ECE grouping agree with what you've discovered
here or not?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Everyone we've spoken to in child of education and to
this report, we spoke to lots of people and went
and looked at centers across the country agrees that there's
some really key good practices that teachers do, which makes
a big difference. It could accelerate literacy by up to
a years. They're really good quality.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Ec How variable are the standards when you go into these.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Places early child's education does vary. What we saw though
is that most places are really prioritizing spoken language and
there are some really good practices that they can do,
but we need to support teachers to use those best practices.
So one thing we've said particularly the need support is
understanding jun's progress so that they can tell parents about that,
because half the parents have said they don't really know

(01:50):
how well their child's progressing in their language skills, and
that matters.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Do they not know because they haven't asked a.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Bit of a combination there, and sometimes parents aren't asking
sometimes centers aren't letting parents know. And what we're saying
here is actually teachers can do more to understand children's
progress and they need a bit more support to do that,
so then when they go home, parents can practice the
language that the children need and that will really helpful
when they go to school.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
How much of its EC how much of its parents?
I mean, are we relying too much on the ecs
to fix all our problems?

Speaker 2 (02:22):
It's definitely what we know works as a combination. So
we know that EC can make a really big difference
and some of those teachers with really good professional knowledge
the seven times more likely to be doing the best practice.
But you're right, it's parents as well. It's what we
do getting our kids off screens, talking with them, having
conversations that when they start school they're set up to succeed.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
All right, Ruth, appreciate it. Rich Snoda out of the er.
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