NSW teaches children the basics

As federal Education Minister Alan Tudge fights for much needed improvements to the revised national curriculum, the Perrottet government in NSW, which is responsible for schools in the state, has achieved an important breakthrough with its curriculum reform project. Syllabuses for students from kindergarten to Year 2 are to be overhauled to give young students stronger literacy and numeracy skills, the building blocks for the rest of their primary and secondary education and beyond.

Phonics – teaching students to pronounce the sounds associated with letters in isolation and to combine the sounds to form words – as they learn to read is now mandatory. The use of phonics is supported by decades of evidence from research in Australia and overseas. After years of acrimonious “reading wars” as Australian students’ reading skills deteriorated, it almost beggars belief that it has taken so long for phonics to be mandated. South Australia led the nation in 2018 introducing a statewide phonics check. Other states should follow suit, as should the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority as it finalises the new national curriculum.

The depth of Australia’s literacy problems was highlighted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in July when it released data showing that almost 50 per cent of Tasmanian adults were functionally illiterate. The problem also has contributed to Australian students falling behind their peers in international testing of subjects such as maths, English and science, and in flatlining NAPLAN results in many schools.

Under the NSW reforms, early maths teaching will highlight foundational numeracy skills and include a greater emphasis on students developing reasoning skills. A stronger foundation in the basics of maths should stand students in good stead when demand for graduates with expertise in STEM disciplines – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – has never been as strong. The curriculum will be posted online. NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said it would come with explicit teaching advice. That is important when many university teacher courses still do not include phonics.