Manisha Gazula: Teaching literacy the 'the Marsden way' | ABC Conversations Podcast

Manisha Gazula is the principal of Marsden Road Public School in the outer south-western suburbs of Sydney.
When Manisha first came to the school, less than three per cent of its students were proficient in English reading and writing, which severely limited their options in life.
This was for many reasons - some children had never seen a book or held a pencil until they were ten years old, almost all of them didn't speak English at home, many came from refugee backgrounds, and Manisha was convinced that the conventional way of teaching literacy was not working.
So she introduced a new system that delivered much more explicit instruction in the elements of reading and writing.
It was a controversial change that made her first few years at Marsden Road tough, but the result was a radical improvement in student literacy, and now many other schools want to follow 'the Marsden Way'.
CREDITS:
Carmel Rooney, Executive Producer
Richard Fidler, Presenter
Meggie Morris, Producer