MultiLit has officially launched its new expanded Perth Centre in a move that will bring research-informed literacy expertise to schools, educators, and families across Western Australia.
Based in Subiaco, the Perth Centre is also home to a MultiLit Literacy Centre and will provide a base for the delivery of literacy training, programs, and support across the state.
Speaking ahead of Wednesday’s launch, which was attended by members of Perth’s education community, MultiLit Chairman Emeritus Professor Kevin Wheldall AM said the expansion into WA would benefit schools, teachers, and ultimately students.
“MultiLit was founded on a vision of ensuring that the evidence regarding how children learn to read and how to best teach reading made its way into the hands of teachers for use inside classrooms where it can have the greatest impact,” said Emeritus Professor Wheldall.
“While that evidence was resisted for many years, thanks to the popularity of certain philosophical approaches to literacy education not based on science, it’s heart-warming to see more and more schools and school systems engage with the scientific evidence when it comes to effectively teaching reading.
“MultiLit has worked with thousands of schools and teachers across Australasia to support them in their efforts to boost students’ reading achievement through the implementation of structured, systematic skills-based literacy instruction and we are looking forward to continuing that work in partnership with schools in the west.”
MultiLit Managing Director Iain Rothwell said the Perth expansion had been driven by growing demand from schools keen to align their pedagogical approaches with recent updates to education policy and the state’s school curriculum.
“MultiLit has been privileged to already partner with schools across the state to support them to enhance their literacy teaching so that all students have the best opportunity to become proficient readers,” Mr Rothwell said.
“The engagement from Western Australian schools has been strong and is increasing.
“We see this as a welcome and positive endorsement of the work that we do.”
Georgie Wynne, MultiLit General Manager, Western Australia, said the local response to the Perth Centre opening had been encouraging, both from educators and families who had already engaged in tutoring services via the Literacy Centre.
The expansion would boost MultiLit’s capacity to deliver face-to-face and videoconference professional learning workshops, she said, and provide a local base for the product development team to create new programs and resources to respond to the needs of schools.
“Schools, teachers, families all want the best for their students and that’s for them to develop the essential non-negotiable skills, including literacy, that they need to be successful in school and in life,” she said.
“The benefit of MultiLit programs is that, while evidence-based, they have also been rigorously tested in schools and with real teachers and children to ensure they produce visible improvements in literacy achievement.
“At the same time, MultiLit is invested in improving teacher capacity when it comes to effective literacy instruction, which is particularly important in the wake of the current teacher workforce crisis that has left many schools with high teacher vacancy rates.”
The launch was well attended, with guests including Chief Executive Officer of the Knowledge Society Elena Douglas, Glenn Fahey from the Centre of Independent Studies, Edith Cowan University Associate Professor Lorraine Hammond AM, and representatives from the WA Department of Education’s phonics initiative team.