As we celebrate World Teachers’ Day later this month, we honour albeit briefly the teaching legacies of two international giants in learning and literacy: Peter Freebody and P. David Pearson. Both wrote about how becoming deeply literate is a complex, ongoing learning process. They were kind and generous scholars who were mentors and friends to many. Both rejected the controversial polarisation around literacy pedagogy, often called the ‘Reading Wars’.

P. David Pearson, a renowned educator and researcher, demonstrated that meaning-making does not simply follow on from the decoding process. Rather, he demonstrated that readers need to be actively engaged in bringing their knowledge, experiences and expectations to a text from the outset. He conceptualised and described how teachers need to model, support and guide learners explicitly. At the same time, he understood that learners need to be actively engaged in their own learning journeys. He encouraged teachers to provide increasing opportunities over time for learners to take more responsibility in their own learning (the Gradual Release of Responsibility). David also wrote the very helpful resource, Fact Checking the Science of Reading with Rob Tierney which can be accessed through the literacy commons website. 

In the 1990s, Peter Freebody with Allan Luke, co-created the groundbreaking framework, the ‘Four Resources Model’. This framework clearly explains the interconnected ‘roles’ of the reader and writer (code breaker, text participant, text user and text analyst). The ‘Four Resources Model’ maintains that all roles are ‘necessary but not sufficient’ on their own. In later years Peter also referred to other roles that may be relevant in different curriculum areas. Re-read Luke and Freebody’s Further Notes on the Four Resources Model 

Peter also wrote the Shape paper for the Australian curriculum: English. His definitive review on literacy for the Australian Council of Educational Research in 2007, ‘Literacy Education in School: Research perspectives from the past for the future' is an excellent resource.

The Foundation for Learning and Literacy committee members suggest teachers and school leaders re-visit both the roles of the reader and student agency and the implications for their classroom practices.

Featured Touchstones

While all Touchstones resonate with both Pearson and Freebody’s research and scholarship, we have chosen to highlight Touchstones 1, 5 and 6 this month:

Touchstone 1: A fair and equitable society depends on every citizen being able to speak, listen critically with confidence, read and write.

Touchstone 5: Responding and making meaning is the beginning, middle and end of speaking and listening and learning to read and write.

Touchstone 6: Learner experiences are different, their environments are different, their ways of thinking are different. A ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to literacy learning does not work. Every child is unique.

What's New on our Website

Explore articles and resources with a reading focus on our website here.

Two recent articles in that collection are:

• Research should support teaching rather than prescribe it
• How to help kids absorb complex nonfiction texts

Please share this October newsletter widely amongst your networks so they too can visit the new Foundation for Learning and Literacy website and the 2026 We all like a good story  Symposium. Suggest they also consider whether they would like to become a Friend.

 Yours in literacy,

The Executive and General Committees
Foundation for Learning and Literacy