Professor Pamela Snow

Ping @carolinebowen.bsky.social

NAPLAN: Where to from here for students who “need additional support”?

Parents of children flagged as “needs additional support” on #NAPLAN don’t need platitudes and rationalisations. They need a clear, evidence-informed action plan with accountability wrapped around it.

pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2025/07/napl...

Cognitive load theory doesn't matter

Cogntive Load Theory doesn’t matter.

New Snow Report blogpost.
pamelasnow.blogspot.com/2025/07/cogn...

National and International Monitoring of Student Literacy and Numeracy Attainment: The Case for Rigorous Macro and Micro Analysis In her 2024 paper Are Australian students' academic skills declining? Interrogating 25 years of national and international standardised assessment data, Larsen compiled an impressive summary of major...

It’s not enough to say that #NAPLAN data isn’t getting worse over time. It should be improving (it’s not) and we should be closing equity gaps (we’re not). This is our #OpenAccess response to a 2024 paper by Dr Sally Larsen (Uni of New England).

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

National and International Monitoring of Student Literacy and Numeracy Attainment: The Case for Rigorous Macro and Micro Analysis In her 2024 paper Are Australian students' academic skills declining? Interrogating 25 years of national and international standardised assessment data, Larsen compiled an impressive summary of major...

It’s not enough that #NAPLAN data is not worsening over time. It should be improving and we should be closing gaps for equity groups. This open access paper is our response to a 2024 paper by Dr Sally Larsen claiming “nothing to see here”.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Thank you for those very kind and generous words Louise 💐

Thanks for the shout out Caroline. It’s been wonderful to collaborate so closely with you in the past 10yrs - looking forward to many years more of writing and thinking together 📝👩🏼‍💻🧐

Thank you Suze 🌻

With the proof copy marked up for final edits, our forthcoming magnum opus is a step closer.

The Science of Language and Reading - An Introduction This specialised course covers the linguistic basis of early reading as this applies to word decoding and language comprehension.

On July 23 we’ll again start our popular La Trobe online Intro to the Science of Language & Reading 4-week short course. This is fully flexible and discounts apply for schools enrolling 10 or more staff (or all staff in the case of very small schools).

shortcourses.latrobe.edu.au/the-science-...

Seems like an optimistic estimate but I’d be very pleased if it was an accurate reflection of reality. Still a lot of variation, I think in what constitutes SSP.

A big day for the La Trobe SOLAR Lab team yesterday. We conferred an Honorary Doctorate on @ehanford.bsky.social and welcomed @smithre5.bsky.social into the PhD fold. With @tserry2504.bsky.social and Joanna Barbousas 🌻

Parents’ views and experiences of literacy instruction provided during the COVID-19 remote learning period - Tanya Serry, Lisa Furlong, Pamela Snow, Tessa Weadman, Caitlin Stephenson, 2025 Remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity for parents of early years students to gain insights into instructional methods used ...

Our new paper on parents of early years students’ experiences of remote learning, (specifically reading instruction), during COVID is available and open access. doi.org/10.1177/0004...
With @lisamareet.bsky.social @pamelasnow.bsky.social @tessaweadman @caitlinstephenson

“Results suggest that the impact of Reading Recovery on students’ ELA test scores in 3rd/4th grades is statistically sig & negative; students who participated in RR in 1st had 3rd/4th test scores that were about one-half to one full grade level below similar students who did not participate in RR”

YouTube video by Atlanta News First Literacy Crisis: How Decades of Teaching Practices Left Children Behind

“Long-term impacts of Reading Recovery through 3rd and 4th Grade: a regression discontinuity study” by Henry May, Aly Blakeney, Pragya Shrestha, Mia Mazal and Nicole Kennedy (May ’23) doi.org/10.1080/1934...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A0A...

A thoughtful and well argued piece about ability grouping Vs differentiation in reading instruction.

playberrylaser.com.au/articles/pla...

Predictors of academic achievement and educational support for adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) - Olof Sandgren, Birgitta Sahlén, Christina Samuelsson, Anna Ekström, 2025 Purpose Developmental language disorder (DLD) has known consequences on academic performance, and adaptations to teaching methods and material are often require...

Open access paper on 246 Swedish adolescents with #DevLangDis and their caregivers: Predictors of academic achievement and educational support for adolescents with developmental language disorder (DLD) #SLPeeps doi.org/10.1177/0265...

Another day of reminding everyone of Carl Sagan’s eerily accurate warning about the dangers of not being able to ask skeptical scientific questions to those in power or authority.

Are you a teacher interested in the @latrobe Master of Ed, Language & Literacy specialisation? If so, register to attend this online info session & learn about other specialisation streams too. Note we also have a Grad Cert (Language & Literacy) option.

event.on24.com/wcc/r/491969...

This is an exciting opportunity for Australian teachers to share their views and experiences on teaching students with an intellectual disability to read. Please share in your networks so @lifeoflottie.bsky.social has a strong response rate on which to base her fundings. 👇👇👇

redcap.link/0992thw7

Calling Victorian schools in rural and regional areas - great opportunity to join us in the La Trobe #SOLARLab #RuralRoadsToReading Project. redcap.link/Rural_Roads_to…

To express your interest/find out more, email reading@latrobe.edu.au before May 23.

🙃 it wasn’t for a lack of trying!

Thank you! 🌻 Lovely to be here.