Angus Lange was always out of his seat in primary school, taking out the bins, cleaning the whiteboard and trying to be helpful.
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"I remember that I used to get in trouble a lot because I was like, never doing my work. I was always like, out of my seat doing things, because I didn't understand," Angus said.
His mother Sarah noticed from kindergarten that Angus struggled to sound out letters and words.
"He couldn't decipher the word. He couldn't sound out the word. And then also his writing. He struggled to write and the formation of letters or numbers," she said.
"My sister actually flagged it and said, maybe he's dyslexic"
When Angus was in year 3 he received a diagnosis of dyslexia and ADHD. He went through the Reading Recovery program but that didn't work.
"12 years ago, there was absolutely nothing, no resources around for how do we manage this?" Sarah said.
Angus started going to a tutor who taught him English from the ground up.
"I don't know how to really explain it but my brain just like sort of got it so much easier than normal teachers," he said.
"She would break it up into every little detail and say this is how this sounds, how this sounds and this is what happens when this letter is close to this letter or further away from this letter."
Snake oil and misinformation
Dyslexia is the most common specific learning difficulty, but it is still not well-understood by teachers and does not attract any additional funding for ACT public school students.
Parents often spend thousands on getting a diagnosis through private psychologists and then even more on intensive private tutoring to help their children catch up.
Even then, students with dyslexia are likely to need special provisions in the classroom and small group support, know as tier two intervention, to help them engage with the work on the same level as their peers.
Jen Cross' son was having difficulties with reading when he was in year 1 and went through the Reading Recovery program.
"The teacher came back and said, I'm really sorry, but ... it didn't work for him. He basically failed it. So we were shocked to hear that," she said.
Teachers initially brushed off her concerns that he could have dyslexia and assured her that for most kids it was a matter of time that he would learn to read.
His reading level was so low that when he went to sit NAPLAN for the first time in year 3 his teacher suggested to keep him home that day.
Her son switched to a private school and started getting evidence-based tutoring at the Canberra Reading Clinic, which was using the Multi-Lit program.
She started up a Facebook page to share her research on dyslexia to collate the information and connect with other parents facing a similar dilemma.
"He went from basically being a non-reader to becoming someone who could read to a point.... he was nowhere near where his peers were, but he was able to read for the first time ever so so that was amazing for me," Ms Cross said.
"Then I just thought, well, if I'm going through all this, everyone else must be going through all this. This is horrendous."
She said parents can get confused by providers offering snake oil-like remedies instead of evidence-based ones.
"It makes it a bit of a minefield for parents to decide what to do, which is another reason why I decided to keep the Facebook page going because I know that a lot of people get misguided and misguided by the schools."
Ms Cross started a petition in 2013 which led to a taskforce into specific learning difficulties.
There is now a page on the directorate's website with information on specific learning difficulties with links to other resources. Teachers have access to online learning modules that they can do on an opt-in basis.
Ms Cross said she felt disappointed and frustrated that many of the taskforce recommendations appear to have not been followed up in recent years.
"It's definitely petered out. I'm well and truly aware there are schools now that don't actually offer any tier two support at all. They'll put it down mostly probably to the teacher shortage. I also think that there's more to it than that," she said.
Evidence-based reading instruction
The way that Angus learned to read is known as systematic synthetic phonics. It is based on a body of research known as the science of reading.
University of Canberra doctoral lecturer Julia Davies-Duff said many schools in the ACT used a different approach, known as balanced literacy, supported by levelled readers.
Often when students fall behind, schools used evidence-based interventions but they don't use these methods for the whole class.
Mrs Davies-Duff said she gets weekly phone calls from parents asking her to tutor their children.
"I think it's a travesty that there is so many students getting to high school that are missed," she said.
"I've got lots of friends who have speech pathologist. As an educator, I don't think it's right that they should be delivering reading instruction."
ACT Education Directorate acting executive group manager for service design and delivery Angela Spence said ACT public schools do support explicit teaching of phonics through the 10 essential literacy practices.
"We absolutely support the systematic teaching and explicit teaching of phonological awareness and letter sound relationships," Ms Spence said.
"It is not the only way in which we teach because our teachers have to have a range of evidence-based strategies so that they can adjust and meet the individual needs of our students that they teach day to day."
Ms Cross said students were still falling through the cracks because schools had autonomy over how they delivered the curriculum.
"I know that the ACT Education Directorate have looked into a more science-based sort of way of teaching using the 10 essential practices. But it's still not thorough enough.
"And because nothing's mandated by the Directorate each school can choose whatever instructional approach they like in regards to reading instruction."
Angus switched to St Edmund's College and completed year 12 in 2023. Once he learned to read, his confidence grew and he wasn't as anxious about reading to other people.
His mother's hope is for university initial teacher education degrees to go back to basics in the teaching of phonics to help the next generation of dyslexic students.
"The advantage is, it's not just dyslexic kids, it is every child that can learn that way," Ms Lange said.