Four years ago, Mooroopna Primary School brought on their first speech pathologist.
Leah Hawker, a speech pathologist with over 20 years of experience, joined the school four years ago when her family moved to the area.
She loves helping students with their learning and literacy needs.
Since Leah joined Mooroopna Primary School, there have been significant improvements in how literacy is taught in the classroom.
“In the last four years, we’ve changed our literacy program to be more in line with the science of reading approach,” she said.
This approach is designed for Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 students, where she runs the Little Learners Love Literacy program.
“This is taught from Foundation to Year 2, and then we use it for intervention in the upper years of school,” Leah said.
“Having someone on site means we can constantly be trying to work out what’s the best learning style [for students] and how we can better accommodate them in the classroom,” she said.
To help assist Leah’s coverage within the school, the school has one to two fourth-year university students through Going Rural Health.
“My position is partially funded through the Greater Shepparton Foundation, and part of it is to have regular university students [on site] through Going Rural Health,” she said.
“So I run literacy groups in one, two, three and four and my student is currently running one in five and six.
“We couldn’t do what we do without the university students.”
BY Georgia Tacey