Beeby fellow 2010

The 2010 Beeby fellow is Canterbury University senior lecturer Faye Parkhill. Faye has successfully trialled a literacy programme in the youth unit at Christchurch Men’s Prison, working with young adults who have not responded to traditional schooling and require extra assistance to gain literacy skills that will allow them to function more successfully in society.

Faye has adapted the Audio Visual Achievement in Literacy Language and Learning (AVAILLL) programme, which uses a combination of image and word to foster comprehension and fluency in reading. The programme includes explicit literacy activities that interweave acquisition of literacy skills with watching movies (on DVDs), reading the subtitles on these movies, and later reading novels. Students “read-watch” movies and complete a range of games and activities designed to keep them on track when reading the subtitles and therefore provides opportunity for purposeful and focused reading. Research to date has indicated that significant success has been achieved with low achieving students in secondary schools and with primary school students in Years 6 to 8. The students are fully engaged for one hour per day over a six week period.

She has used the fellowship to develop a new Teachers’ Manual, including reference to new movies. She is also preparing a resource that focuses on a compilation of research including the effects of the programme with young offenders.She is interested in making the resource available for use in all prisons in Australasia.