reading difficulties". (Pg. 12) Where there is unsystematic or no phonics instruction, children do not perform as well in such areas as reading accuracy, fluency, writing, spelling and comprehension. (Pg. 12) A recommendation that teachers provide "systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction". (Pg. 14) Dr Jennifer Buckingham, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Independent Studies, AU published a research brief in June 2018 explaining Systematic Synthetic Phonics and the evidence supporting it. As of October 5, 2018, The State Government of Victoria, Australia, publishes a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including Effective Reading Instruction, Phonics, and Sample Phonics Lessons. It contains elements of synthetic phonics, analytic phonics, and analogy phonics. Canada In Canada, public education is the responsibility of the Provincial and Territorial governments. There is no evidence that systematic phonics (including synthetic phonics) has been specifically adopted by any of these jurisdictions. On the one hand, the curriculum of all of the Canadian provinces include some of the following: phonics, phonological awareness, segmenting and blending, decoding, phonemic awareness, graphophonic cues, and letter-sound relationships. On the other hand, some of the practices of whole language are evident, such as: "use language prediction skills to identify unknown words"; "using three cueing systems: meaning, structure, and visual"; "reading on, omitting words, rereading and making substitutions"; "predict on the basis of what makes sense"; and "a wide variety of sight words". Yet, systematic phonics and synthetic phonics received attention in the following publications: In 2005 the Ministry of Education for the government of Ontario published a report entitled Early Reading Strategy: The Report of the Expert Panel on Early Reading in Ontario and Early Math Strategy. The report states "This Expert Panel supports the position of the National Reading Panel (2000) that phonics instruction should be integrated into a comprehensive and balanced reading program. Instruction in phonics and decoding should not be conceived of as a total reading program, but neither should it be neglected." Pg 104 The Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network published a report entitled Foundations for Literacy: An evidence-based Toolkit for the Effective Reading and Writing Teacher. It is a practical toolkit helping teachers to a) understand research in order to keep informed, b) understand how children develop reading and writing skills, and c) understand how to use effective instruction techniques. It also includes explanations of phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, the alphabetic principle (including systematic phonics and synthetic