Students with literacy delays have advanced their reading ages by up to two years through an eight-week program undertaken in a network of Western Sydney region schools.

The literacy program, based on the book Reading Success: A Reading Intervention for Students with ADHD by Dr Kathy Baker, was part of a regional initiative for schools for specific purposes.

Western Sydney region priority schools project consultant Corey Davidson said Coreen School, Mount Druitt Tutorial Centre, Niland School, Penrith Adolescent Centre, Penrith Valley Learning Centre and Rowland Hassall School recently implemented the program.

“The [program] was around engagement for these students and reading and writing … trying to connect it to everyday life for them,” Mr Davidson said. “It was all about reading for meaning.”

Coreen School teacher Joanne Bayliss said the program offered flexibility in delivery and content.

“Because our settings are so unique, quite often one size doesn’t fit all … conditions are never predictable, so the key was flexibility,” she said.

School learning support officers (SLSOs) spent time with individual students, re-teaching the six fundamental reading strategies: asking what is it about, does it make sense, re-reading, reading-on, looking for picture clues and sounding out words.

“[These strategies are] the reading behaviours … that you would have learned in primary school but our students probably missed out on either because they were absent from school or just took longer to learn,” Mrs Bayliss said.

Coreen School SLSO Jenny Monaghan said the freedom to practise the strategies on their choice of reading materials, including road rules booklets, magazines and appropriate niche-interest publications, enhanced student engagement.

Comparisons of test results across the network from before and after the program showed all schools had reported substantial reading improvements, including an average reading age increase of about two years at Penrith Adolescent Centre, Mr Davidson said.