Jessica Del Rio | The ACT's poor NAPLAN reading results are a wakeup call

It's not just reading. The new data tells us that a third (or more) of our children scored in the bottom two bands in writing, grammar, and numeracy. A quarter of students are falling behind in spelling.

Around one in 10 students are unable to read and write at the basic level expected for a student in year 9.

This is not an acceptable rate of failure. The ACT's results are better than the national average, but this doesn't mean they are good. State and territory governments need to use this new NAPLAN data to establish ambitious, but achievable targets for students.

Worse yet, Equity Economics' analysis showed that the ACT has one of the most inequitable education systems in Australia. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are several years behind their peers, with gaps in educational attainment widening over time. The latest NAPLAN release shows little improvement, Canberra's most disadvantaged students are still being left behind.

And it's not just them. There is a large group of advantaged children, whose parents have bachelor degrees, who are failing to meet benchmarks.

Whether they come from less advantaged or more advantaged backgrounds, these results represent much more than numbers on a page, they represent a group of children who are leaving school with such a low level of literacy that it will impact on their wellbeing, on their mental health and their physical health, on whether they will join the labour force, get a job and their level of income.

It is possible to help these children by taking a scientific approach with evidence-based policy and practice, to do more of what works, and less of what doesn't.

Australian governments, including the ACT government, need to ensure the latest research findings on literacy instruction are better accessed and used by schools and educators. The Australian Education Research Organisation, Australia's independent education evidence body, has concluded many schools across Australia are using strategies which have not been proven to be effective for reading instruction. A change in management process is required to phase out the use of the cueing system which encourages children to guess unknown words, and to bring in high quality explicit instruction which systematically teaches children letter sounds.

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Unfortunately, some teachers in Australia have been short-changed on their university instruction. The federal Education Minister wants to turn this around and recently gave universities two years to reform teaching degrees and to start training teachers in techniques that are based on educational science. High quality, evidence informed approaches need to be embedded in initial qualification training and professional development for teachers. This cannot intensify workload for teachers.

They must have appropriate relief time to access this training. The ACT is privileged to possess exceptional educators and they should be supported.

There are good tools to find those children who require extra support and to find them early so that they can access small group tuition and one-on-one support and catch up with the rest of the class. The year 1 phonics check, or some variation of it, has been rolled out in almost every other state and territory but not in the ACT. The ACT does not have a failsafe when it comes to ensuring kids don't fall through the cracks when they are learning to read.

Catholic schools in the ACT have shown that significant improvement is possible. They have reduced the number of schools that are well below or below average in reading compared to similar students in the rest of the country. Their approach is based on prevention, early intervention and evidence so all children can reach their potential at school and in later life.

It's time for a serious conversation about how to ensure every child in the ACT is able to go to their local school and to graduate with the skills they need for work and life. It is their right and it is Canberra's obligation.