ONLY a few years ago at Charnwood-Dunlop School there was a trickle of students leaving year 6 who could not read.
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This year no child leaving for high school will be illiterate because extra funding has been poured into the school to hire a specialist numeracy and literacy coach.
Anecdotal reports from teachers and according to NAPLAN results, the 250-pupil Charnwood-Dunlop School has improved markedly, particularly in reading and writing thanks to the extra funds.
If the federal government implements the Gonski review recommendations, which suggests an urgent injection of more than $5.3 billion, this funding will become permanent.
This is according to the Australian Education Union acting ACT secretary Glenn Fowler who said the Gonski report would repeat the Charnwood-Dunlop school success story across the teaching system.
''At the moment, this extra funding could be removed at the drop of a hat,'' Mr Fowler said.
At Charnwood-Dunlop School, NAPLAN test results from the past four years show an increasing number of students achieving the highest level of reading and narrative writing.
The school failed in 2008 to have any year 3 or 5 students in the top band for spelling.
That situation is gradually improving with 13 per cent of year three pupils at the top level while seven 7 per cent of year five attained exceptional skills last year.
Seventeen per cent of the school's students use English as a second language at home, according to the school's principal, Frankie Dowling,
''Our goal is for everyone to become an independent reader,'' Ms Dowling said.
It is challenging for teachers at a school where some kindergarten children arrive being able to read simple books without guidance while others do not know the alphabet. Three other Canberra schools with students from low socio-economic backgrounds - Richardson Primary School, Kingsford Smith School and Florey Primary School - also have numeracy and literacy field officers.
The main reason for the improvement at the school is the $6 million in funding which is shared equally between the ACT and federal governments across all schools over a seven-year period.
Charnwood-Dunlop School's field officer, Emma Campbell, said in the three years she had been employed as a specialist coach at the school, to help pupils and to support other teachers, she had noticed a significant improvement in the children's attitude toward reading.
''They're able to think better about what they're reading and they're learning to read at an earlier age,'' Ms Campbell said.
''They enjoy borrowing from the library and sharing books.''