By Robyn Grace
Outdated reading lessons and a lack of intervention is resulting in Victorian students falling years behind and leaving parents to spend thousands of dollars on tutors and specialist assessments.
Angry families claim the way reading is taught at some schools is failing to pick up on their child’s lack of progress and leaving them in the dark until it’s too late.
Melissa Haw with her 14-year-old daughter, Isla, who is dyslexic.Credit: Chris Hopkins
Lilly* was excited to start school and brought lists of words to her book-filled home as she and her classmates began reading lessons.
But by the end of term one, she was downcast. Then she started to ask for days off.
Lilly retained nothing about reading, despite words plastered over the walls and practising every night with her mother.
Teachers said the family should be patient and read more at home, reassuring them reading takes longer to click for some kids. A specialist later said Lilly was the most severely dyslexic person she had ever treated.
Now 15, she refuses to read at all.
Mother Cathy* said early intervention would not have prevented her daughter’s dyslexia but could have saved years of trial and error, which shattered her confidence and cost more than $20,000.
“A bright little girl [who] ran into school asking me to leave her at the gate. She was so tiny,” Cathy said. “Because of school, she has now experienced trauma and mental health difficulties. And she just wants me to accept that she’s done.”
Cathy is one of a number of parents who contacted The Age after the Grattan Institute called for a national reading “revolution”.
Grattan wants all education sectors to commit to structured literacy – also known as science of reading, which favours a systematic, evidence-based approach to teach all children the building blocks of letters and words – over balanced literacy, which includes strategies to guess words based on pictures and context.
Parents claim a test routinely carried out at schools practising science-based reading instruction would have prompted action for their child’s lack of progress. But many say they didn’t even know what teaching strategy their school was using.
Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) last week became the largest school system to move to a curriculum-wide explicit teaching approach, following the success of a similar initiative by schools in the Canberra/Goulburn region in 2020.
MACS executive director Dr Edward Simons said explicit instruction methods had “clearly shown us that our education systems can be much more effective at educating our children”.
In Victoria, public schools are allowed to choose their own teaching methodology, unlike in South Australia, Tasmania, NSW and Queensland, where schools are advised to use science of reading.
Isla Haw, 14, showed signs early in prep that she was struggling to read, but it wasn’t until the end of grade 1 that a teacher with experience in dyslexia suggested an assessment.
Mother Melissa, who was then training to be a teacher, had a speech pathologist friend who took Isla for intervention. Since grade 4, she has read above her year level.
Melissa spent about $10,000 on private tuition but said the result would have been different had she relied on the school, which practised balanced literacy.
“The teachers were like, ‘Oh, maybe reading’s just not going to be for her’. Which is just so wrong.”
The Haw family lives in regional Victoria, meaning a school change was not an option. When Melissa’s younger daughter also showed signs of struggling, they returned to the tutor.
“There’s not something wrong with my children,” she said. “There’s something wrong with the system.”
Almost one-third of Australian children across years 3, 5, 7 and 9 failed to meet new proficiency standards for literacy in last year’s NAPLAN tests. In Victoria, with its high levels of advantaged students, that number is one in four.
About 20 per cent of students are thought to have learning difficulties, including dyslexia.
Children identified as having learning difficulties must be assessed by an educational psychologist and undergo six months of evidence-based intervention – which some schools are not equipped to provide – before they are diagnosed with dyslexia.
Dyslexia Victoria Support, the largest state-based, parent-run support group in the country, campaigned for years for the grade 1 phonics check and Heidi Gregory, the organisation’s head, said she was “deeply upset” by Victoria’s offering, which experts have dismissed as “hopeless” compared to the free national version.
Gregory said the lack of transparency around the test was also a concern. Many parents did not realise how far behind their child was until their first NAPLAN results in grade 3.
DVS marks its 10th anniversary this year but Gregory said little had changed. A survey in 2023 showed parents had spent millions getting cognitive assessments for their children.
“We need to give more parents more transparency on what’s actually happening with their kids,” she said. “Rather than spending years being told that dyslexia means just wait, it’ll happen. We can’t.”
An Education Department spokesperson said Victoria had a mandatory literacy assessment at prep and grade 1 that provided a screening tool to identify reading difficulties.
The tool was developed for the department by experts at the Australian Council of Education Research (ACER).
All teachers in Victorian government schools also had access to resources to support the teaching of students with dyslexia.
* Pseudonyms used to protect people’s privacy.
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