Time to commit to evidence-based reading instruction in our primary schools

There is no excuse for 50,000 Australian kids entering high school with poor literacy skills.

The Primary Reading Pledge is both a plan and a call to arms. There is no good excuse for 50,000 students to begin their secondary education each year without the reading skills they need to succeed. Source: iStock

If there is one educational and life skill that children must learn before they leave primary school, above all else, what should it be? Inarguably it is learning to read. Reading underpins the entire academic curriculum.

Life opportunities of young people who cannot read competently are severely curtailed.

An analysis by the Mitchell Institute found that students with low literacy in Year 7 are twice as likely to drop out of school early. Each cohort of early school-leavers is estimated to cost the economy $12bn across their lifetime. Their quality of life suffers in ­numerous ways.

According to National assessment Program — Literacy and Numeracy statistics, 50,000 students start their secondary schooling each year with poor reading skills. These students didn’t become suddenly poor readers over the summer holidays before they started Year 7. Almost the same number of students were identified as ­struggling readers in years 3 and 5. This means their difficulties had been identified at several points in primary school but had not been effectively addressed.

Some students in high school with low literacy are non-English-speaking new ­arrivals in our country or have a profound disability. These ­students are not reflected in the NAPLAN statistics.

For most children who struggle with reading, it is because they have not had effective evidence-based reading instruction in the classroom in the early years of school. Known as Tier 1 instruction in reading research, this is the first critical step in preventing reading failure. With high-quality Tier 1 classroom instruction that incorporates phonics (learning to decode words using knowledge of letters and sounds) as well as language-rich activities to develop vocabulary and comprehension in a systematic, explicit and engaging way, most children will learn to read early and well.

After decades of neglecting the phonics element of teaching reading in particular, there are strong signs that Tier 1 instruction is beginning to change for the better in many schools.

Thousands of ­teachers have benefited from an explosion in online professional learning and free webinars in the past few months from organisations devoted to elevating the use of evidence-based practice in schools. Collegial communities of teachers and reading specialists are springing up around the country.

Government policy settings are moving in the right direction. A bellwether indicator of a shift in attitudes is the growing use and acceptance of the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, which has been used in English primary schools since 2012.

South Australian primary schools have been using the check since 2018 after a thorough and successful trial and, importantly, also have been provided with extensive professional learning in explicit reading instruction, including phonics.

More than 500 primary schools in NSW have joined a voluntary trial of the Year 1 Phonics Check later this month after thousands of teachers participated in optional professional learning in evidence-based reading instruction last year. The federal government recently launched an online version of the check, along with an accompanying resource website.

A handful of predictable critics have tried to cast doubt on the teaching of phonics and the ­usefulness of the check by impugning the motives of its advocates. But these ideological attacks increasingly are falling on deaf ears as teachers witness the positive results for themselves.

All of these developments signal that decision-makers in government and teachers in schools are becoming more cognisant of the strong evidence on which explicit reading instruction is based.

It has taken years of concerted ­effort from researchers and well-informed educators to achieve this, having been stymied by the frequently poor quality of pre-service teacher education over a generation and a resistance to scientific research evidence in university education faculties. This situation will hopefully soon improve as new accreditation standards for teaching degrees are gradually implemented.

However, the day when all children receive excellent classroom instruction has not yet arrived and, even when it does, there will still be students who require additional support. These children require effective intervention programs based on the same scientific and rigorous research as Tier 1 instruction, but more closely targeted and intensive. Some ineffective intervention programs in schools are based on disproved reading theories or, worse, are “brain training” regimens that have nothing to do with reading.

Effective reading intervention programs are generally classified as Tier 2 programs if they are for small groups of students who need extra teaching to catch up, or Tier 3 if they are for students with more serious difficulties ­requiring specialist support. Using these tiers of intervention allows schools to address the needs of all students and direct the available resources and expertise to students who need them most.

This model of intervention is not used uniformly. Nor are the assessments that inform appropriate intervention decisions. This is rarely due only to lack of financial resources. It is often because many teachers have not learned about evidence-based assessment and intervention in their pre-service education or subsequently. Schools are not routinely provided with sound, practical advice about which reading assessments and programs can accurately be described as evidence-based or evidence-informed, and how and when to use them.

One of the most underused data sources is NAPLAN, which may in part explain why it is also undervalued. There is no systemic response to NAPLAN results — a child who is at or below the national minimum standard in Year 3 is very likely to be at or below NMS in Year 5, Year 7 and Year 9, if they bother to take the test by then.

Proper use of NAPLAN to identify struggling students and follow up with screening assessments and the right reading intervention would encourage more participation in NAPLAN. It is also a very good reason to keep NAPLAN as a universal assessment instead of a sample test.

This is why the Five From Five reading project, AUSPELD (the national federation of organisations supporting children and adults with specific learning difficulties), and Learning Difficulties Australia have jointly developed the Primary Reading Pledge, which is a framework for primary schools to follow to ensure that all students can read before they start high school. It is unlikely that there is a primary school teacher or principal in Australia who does not share this ideal, but more needs to be done to ensure that they have the support and guidance needed to make it happen.

The Primary Reading Pledge is a plan and a call to arms. There is no good excuse for 50,000 students to begin their secondary education each year without the reading skills they need to succeed.

Jennifer Buckingham is founder and director of the Five From Five project, a community education initiative of MultiLit, and senior research fellow at MultiLit.