by Annette Benson
Have you just started a teacher education course and heard people talk about ‘LANTITE?’
This is the Australian Government’s Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (LANTITE). To become a teacher, you’ll need to pass LANTITE during your degree.
I’m now at the end of my degree and these five tips helped me along the way to get through LANTITE:
1: Know your literacy and numeracy skills
When the government announced LANTITE, I was mortified. I knew that there were areas that I would need to work on and how important it was to spend time refining these skills.
I’m stronger at literacy than numeracy. Though to pinpoint exactly where I needed to focus my prep, I went to my Basic Key Skills Builder (BKSB) diagnostic test. You can take your diagnostic report to the ALLaN team and develop a learning plan that allows you to work on certain areas, such as non-calculator strategies or punctuation.
2: Learn from each other
I got together with a few other students to prepare. We realised early on that we all had different strengths and weaknesses in literacy and numeracy. This made it a good support network to talk about different skills and strategies, and to learn from each other.
3: Commit to your own cause
It was daunting thinking about having to prove that I was in the top 30% of the population with my literacy and numeracy skills. I had to make it a priority to fill in any gaps I had in my knowledge and skills, and commit to preparing for the tests.
4: Get on to it early
We can’t go on our final placements until we pass LANTITE and upload our results into InPlace. So, it’s really important to give yourself enough time to do this before you reach your final year.
I did both of my tests in the same test window but I know students who did one at a time, so they could really focus on just literacy or numeracy in their prep. If you want to sit your literacy and numeracy components separately, make sure you plan for it!
5: Keep your eyes on the prize
Now that I am at the end of my studies and have started working as a casual teacher, I can see that all the hard work has paid off and why these skills are necessary. Being able to help students learn and to build a rapport with them makes it all worthwhile.
Get ready for your tests
Check out your Teacher Education Literacy and Numeracy Tests site in Interact2. The site tells you what to do step-by-step to get ready for LANTITE.
