1.3 million students sat down to their NAPLAN test papers in March— 

Hold up a minute. What’s a NAPLAN test paper? 

NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) is Australia’s annual nationwide test for students in Years 3, 5, 7, and 9 to assess their reading, writing, language conventions, and numeracy skills. It is conducted online, with Year 3 students still completing the writing test on paper. The assessment provides nationally comparable data to monitor student achievement, identify areas for improvement in education, and support school and curriculum development. 93.8% of students participated, which is great news— it’s the highest rate since pre-pandemic, in 2017. 

NAPLAN is administered by ACARA – The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. 

What does NAPLAN assess? 

NAPLAN test papers assess four major areas of learning competency. 

Reading: Students read texts and answer related questions, testing their reading, comprehension and vocabulary skills.  

Writing: Students are tasked with writing a narrative or persuasive piece based on a given prompt. 

Language Conventions: This test assesses spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and the fundamentals of how language communications work on the page. 

Numeracy: Evaluates mathematical skills, including the use of online tools like calculators or protractors. 

But why do kids have to do NAPLAN? 

Administering those NAPLAN test papers is important: it plays a leading role in assessing student learning across Australia. It tracks the literacy and numeracy progress of young Australians, providing valuable data to governments, education authorities, and schools to evaluate how well students are meeting national goals. The results also support school improvement by helping teachers identify each student’s strengths and areas for development, monitor progress over time, and reflect on their teaching programs.  

So it offers a consistent and comparable measure of student achievement across all states and territories, ensuring that we have a national picture of educational outcomes every year.  

What are NAPLAN test papers telling us in 2025? 

ACARA have described 2025’s findings as “broadly stable”, with some signs of improvement in certain areas. That said, there’s a fair amount that educators have voiced their concerns about this year, from the Indigenous achievement gap to ongoing concerns about literacy.  

A big takeaway is that these NAPLAN test papers indicated higher scores on average across Years 5, 7 and 9 in numeracy, particularly among stronger students. Which is great news— but literacy doesn’t appear to be having the same moment in the sun. 

"We want to obviously see students moving through those proficiency levels. We've seen some movement in the right direction in some of those areas this year, particularly in years 5, 7 and 9 in numeracy.  

– ACARA CEO Stephen Gniel. 

But there’s a shadow side to that “broadly stable” statement. 

Across key learning areas, student achievement shows a mixed picture— and whilst we can see that a good number of students are either hitting or approaching positive benchmarks, we have to acknowledge that there are vast numbers of students who aren’t.  

In reading, an average of 68.2 per cent of students performed at “strong” or “exceeding” levels, while numeracy saw 66.8 per cent reaching those benchmarks. Writing followed closely, with 66.6 per cent of students achieving at the same level. While these figures reflect solid outcomes for many learners, they also reveal that approximately one-third of students are not yet performing at strong or exceeding levels—which is particularly concerning in literacy, where foundational skills in reading and writing are critical for future learning success and accessing every other subject on the curriculum. 

…Let’s dig a little deeper into what this year’s NAPLAN test papers are really telling us.  

Literacy isn’t seeing the resurgence and skill growth we’d hoped for 

For the third consecutive year, NAPLAN test papers have revealed troubling trends in student performance, with 1 in 3 Australian students falling short of meeting “challenging but reasonable” benchmarks in literacy. Around 10% of students are significantly behind and require targeted support, while nearly 20% are still developing toward those expected standards.  

The news is, however, mixed: in 2025, student performance in reading saw a modest lift, with 68.2% achieving at the “Exceeding” or “Strong” levels — up from 67.0% in 2024. Results climbed steadily from Year 3 (65.7%) to a peak in Year 5 (72.9%), before tapering off in Year 7 (69.0%) and dipping further by Year 9 (65.1%). On the flip side, the proportion of students needing additional support did actually drop by a moderate amount, to 9.3%, improving on the previous year’s 10.3%.  

That figure fell from Year 3 (10.8%) to Year 5 (7.5%), but crept back up in Year 7 (8.9%) and Year 9 (9.8%).  

The data paints a picture of early gains that soften over time… which is a trend worth keeping an eye on, because it’s dangerous when it entrenches. 

Low literacy that compounds at the end of school has a knock-on effect after learners have left the classroom too. That’s a problem when automation and AI implementation is seeing the job market contract, and more job candidates than ever before have a degree-level education, because it means these students with low literacy are entering a job market with a high expectation of literacy. And when you can’t read independently and with confidence, that’s going to make a job harder to do, make businesses less cost-effective, and make jobs harder to get, too.  

What did the Grattan Institute have to say about NAPLAN 2025? 

Dr Jordana Hunter, Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, reiterates that overall results have remained steady compared to last year.  

But she also emphasised that the fact 1 in 3 students are still performing in the bottom two bands across assessment areas is deeply, deeply troubling:  

“If a child is in that developing category or … needs additional support, that child needs help to catch up,” she said. “And we know early intervention is critical.” 

Dr. Jordana Hunter – Grattan Institute Education Program Director 

Indigenous students display concerning disparities in outcome 

NAPLAN 2025 data highlights persistent and deeply concerning disparities in educational outcomes for Indigenous students. Across all age groups and learning domains, Indigenous learners were four to five times less likely to achieve in the “exceeding” category, with disadvantage even more pronounced in outer-suburban and regional communities. In major cities, 56% of Indigenous students did not meet benchmarks in reading, writing and numeracy—more than double the rate of non-Indigenous students (26%). The gap widens further in remote areas, where 79% of Indigenous students fell below benchmark levels, climbing to a staggering 92% in very remote regions. 

There was, however, a small burst of growth: there was a reportable increase, from 2023 to 2025, in the percentage of Indigenous students achieving “Exceeding” in writing and numeracy at both Years 7 and 9. 

These NAPLAN test papers also shed some light on a gender imbalance in literacy 

Gender differences also emerged, with female students consistently outperforming males in literacy, particularly writing, while boys were more likely to “exceed” in numeracy. It’s a worrying trend— when large demographics fall behind in literacy, it’s easy for a self-fulfilling prophecy to take hold, and result in generations of students who enter exams believing that they’re fundamentally ‘not good at reading’, or look at reading for pleasure as ‘something that boys don’t do’.  

...Wait. Is this all about those grade boundaries again? 

Partially. 

Here’s what’s happened: 

ACARA introduced a new NAPLAN reporting system in 2023 that replaced the previous ten-band scale with four proficiency levels: "Exceeding," "Strong," "Developing," and "Needs Additional Support." This change was designed to align with the National School Reform Agreement and provide clearer information about student achievement. 

However, the shift in categories has led to confusion, as the new labels do not correspond directly with the old ones, making many year-on-year comparisons invalid. Which means that the slew of media reports suggesting a decline in student performance are based on some fundamental misinterpretations of these changes, which means trend analysis over time and general reading stats aren’t anywhere near as valid as they have been in the past. 

The underlying student data remains consistent; only the reporting framework has changed— but that’s left us with some confusion over how deep some of these achievement gaps run, and what the projections look like for the near future. 

Revolutionise reading in your classroom with C-Pen Reader 3! 

C-Pen Reader 3 is a text-to-speech reading tool that’s revolutionising reading support for students and giving schools back their budgets, allowing them to get more support into more student hands, and ensure that reading needs are being supported towards positive outcomes faster than ever. 

The implementation journey is as quick and as simple as scan, listen, understand: students move the pen across the page to get started. Lightning-fast audio relays the words back to them, boosting their comprehension and their independence – and as students problem-solve themselves, using Reader 3’s suite of onboard practice, dictionary and scan-to-file tools, it frees up educator bandwidth as well as fosters stronger reading skills. This means learners head tests like NAPLAN feeling ready to tackle whatever that test paper throws at them, with the confidence to be creative, show the examiner what they can do, and smash their target grades. 

But even with Reader 3 on the case, we know that great teachers are our best defence against reading skill slide. 

At Scanning Pens, we know that educators are our best defence against skill slide and the most important resource students have at their disposal when it comes to overcoming reading needs. And we want to help teachers across Australia support the learners in their care toward academic success, higher NAPLAN results next time around, and a brighter learning and working future for all—because we know what’s at stake for a whole generation of learners if they leave school without the reading skills they need in order to succeed. 

To find out how text-to-speech reading pens can support your students under different exam boards, check out our blog: Which exam boards will let me use a reading pen? 

…Don’t believe the hype yet, worrying about next year’s NAPLAN test papers arriving on the scene already, or wondering how it’ll all work in your classroom? Claim your FREE reading pen trial over at our Educator Trials page!