Recently, the new Australian Curriculum 9.0 was launched as a fully digital experience. This made the national curriculum documents more manageable for teachers exploring learning areas and more clearly showed the essential content Australian students should learn. This was done after extensive reviews of the curriculum in 2020/2021, which compared it with a range of curricula from high-performing countries. The updated curriculum was endorsed by Australian education ministers in April 2022.
The Australian National Curriculum 9.0: English (ACARA, 2022) is presented in year levels from Foundation to Year 10. Content is organised into 3 interrelated strands:
Language
Literature
Literacy
As a digital reading comprehension program whose entire goal is the development of more capable readers who can engage with any text at an advanced level of understanding, CARS & STARS Online engages with elements of all three of these main strands, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the individual story and level being taught, and the way in which it is being delivered to students.
CARS & STARS Online is based around the repeated application of twelve core reading strategies to make students better readers who can analyse and interpret any text at a high level of understanding. The strategies that underpin the program represent distilled elements of word and reading comprehension that carry across all year levels. They are introduced in basic forms in Foundation Year and expanded upon throughout each level of the program.
The multi-level program is designed to be entirely paper-free, with all student answers entered directly into the software, and results being instantly recorded and corrected automatically, requiring no teacher marking. Students work at the level of their understanding, rather than year level.
In large part this is possible because CARS & STARS Online is not tied directly to any single curriculum – rather it’s designed to be able to complement any existing literacy program or English subject plan, as it focuses directly on reading skills and growing comprehension ability, regardless of a student’s actual year level.
Students are engaged at their point of need and instruction is provided directly at their current skill level, with multiple students undertaking CARS & STARS Online in the same class often being at different levels in the program at the same time – something for which the program is designed.
The twelve core reading comprehension strategies that underpin the entirety of the CARS & STARS Online program are all – explicitly or tacitly, directly or indirectly – concerned with the process of analysing and understanding texts better, creating readers and students whose depth of understanding and ability to process information, both in English and consequently as learners in all subjects, will be of benefit to them throughout their lives.
For more information on how CARS & STARS Online can work with specific elements of the new Australian Curriculum 9.0 for English, and any existing curricula or English learning plan, to help make students better readers, please see our website at https://www.hb-digital.com.au/curriculum-alignment.
If you are interested in learning more about the CARS & STARS Online subscriptions and how they can help children to achieve better results, then sign up for a free trial to be an integral part of your child’s reading success.
