Fitzroy Readers are Australia’s best known and oldest literacy program. The Fitzroy Readers were created by Faye Berryman AM and Philip O’Carroll for use in the classrooms of Fitzroy Community School. Faye brought the experience of teaching English, while Philip contribute knowledge acquired as a university lecturer in logic and linguistics. Fitzroy Readers, utilising their combined skills, has for decades underpinned the school’s literacy achievements.
The Origin of the Fitzroy Readers
Faye and Philip did not have any plan to write a literacy program when they started a school. Starting a school and raising a brood of seven children felt like more than enough. But, write one they did for the simple reason that they could not find a program that they felt confident would support the acquisition of literacy. In 1976, whole language programs were the only programs produced by curriculum providers and promoted by education authorities. Whole language, embedding guessing as part of its ‘strategy’ simply felt like a recipe for confusion. Faye and Philip investigated a range of providers and programs, but remained unconvinced as to their efficacy. So, after an extensive search through the programs available for use in primary schools at this time, they felt that they had no choice but to write their own. Their program was structured to build knowledge upon knowledge, replacing the guessing of whole language approaches with sequential skill acquisition. In 1976 they were an outlier, summarily dismissed by education authorities. Now, five decades on, their program is the reference point for literacy education. Their approach is now known as systematic phonics and is the gold standard, building literacy and confidence in equal measure.
The Initial Print Run
The readers have evolved and developed over the years. The initial print run was solely for use at FCS and consisted of flimsy soft copy booklets, printed on a local library’s copier (and only on one side of the paper as old photocopiers could not double side) with illustrations provided by Philip (simple stick figure graphics). The Readers are now a set of coloured, hard-covered readers, supported by the Wordskills books (grammar, punctuation and writing) work books.
Approach To Literacy
Like many aspects of the FCS experience, efforts to bring a better approach to children’s literacy were dismissed by universities, education academics and education department officials. When a friend witnessed the early success of the Fitzroy Readers, they connected Faye and Phillip with senior literacy academics and education department officials, to see Faye and Philip’s Fitzroy Readers program dismissed as an antiquated approach to literacy.
Then and Now
In the end though, Faye and Philip's vision endured, with phonics programs now sold by all major academic publishers, with many programs mimicking the style and content of Faye and Philip’s Fitzroy Readers. Imitation, again, apparently the highest form of flattery.
The end of the whole language approach occurred in June 2024, with the Victorian Education Minister making systematic phonics compulsory in all Victorian State schools.
Fitzroy Readers Today
Fitzroy Readers, currently in their thirteenth edition, now comprises fully integrated workbooks, software, audio materials, educational games and the Fitzroy Maths series. Fitzroy Readers have a reputation for sound learning principles, logical structure and impressive results, and are used in schools and homes across Australia.
