This week the Grattan Institute released its timely report on reading entitled ‘The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success’. Some of the report’s challenging statements deserve consideration: ‘Australia has a reading problem’; ‘A third of our children can’t read proficiently’; ‘the reason most of those students can’t read well enough is that we aren’t teaching them well enough’; and for the vast majority of students, ‘reading failure is unnecessary’.

I am pleased that this issue is receiving such prominence in the media. The extent of the ‘problem’ and its implications need to be acknowledged and addressed by all educational systems and all teachers in all schools – both primary and secondary. A fundamental expectation of an education system is that every child who goes to school will learn how to read. Reading is a foundational skill in and beyond school. Failure to achieve reading proficiency has significant personal costs for children and young people, as well as negative effects on schools, the economy, and society as a whole.

Australia has an unacceptably high number of children and adolescents who fail to reach minimum proficiency standards in reading.According to the 2023 NAPLAN results, about one in three Australian students are not meeting grade-level expectations in reading.At the same time, Australian students are not excelling in reading as they should. According to PISA (the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment), in 2022 only 12 per cent of Australian students were high performers in reading, compared to 22 per cent in Singapore.PISA results also suggest that Australian 15-year-olds’ reading performance has been going backwards over time. Between 2000 and 2018, the average achievement of Year 10 students in Australia fell by about eight months of learning.

The purpose of the Grattan Institute’s report is to improve reading performance. Reading is the essential building block for success in other literacy domains, such as Writing and Spelling, and in other subject areas in the secondary school context such as History, Visual Arts, Maths, and Science. The report suggests the following: there should be a strong focus on phonics-based decoding skills in the early years; students need a knowledge-rich curriculum to build the vocabulary and background knowledge that are critical for successful reading comprehension all through school; and schools need to monitor student progress, so that early interventions can support those students who require additional assistance.

A shared understanding of literacy generally and reading specifically – and its fundamental importance to a student’s ability to learn at school and to engage productively in society – is critical.  Mount Carmel teachers are committed to improving the reading proficiency of all students, given its profound impact on student learning and wellbeing.

Clare Murphy

English Coordinator and Literacy Instructional Coach