The pandemic era is quickly fading into recent memory: an odd period of history where time seemed to stand still and the world was quieter and more uncertain than we’ve ever seen it. Its impact will hang spectrally in the business sphere for the next decade or so, impacting investments and digital histories in largely imperceptible ways, but for the most part, it’s a time of our lives that’s thankfully drawn to a close.
Unless you’re in education, that is.
Further literacy support means learning gets back on track
Globally, we’re in the middle of effecting a student recovery the scale of which has never been seen before. This isn’t a typical dip in attainment, standards or mood that can be linked to curriculum change, resourcing, or test papers: teachers are tasked with administering support that accounts for lost lesson time across multiple school years. Routines have changed, awareness has grown, and learner mental health has never been more compromised.
Reading is the key skill by which we unlock the curriculum, and without it, attainment in every subject, from humanities to technologies, suffers. Almost six months of school closures drastically impacted how learners read, how they think about reading, and their developing reading confidence.
How can we support young readers back into the swing of things, and give reading in schools a boost? Let’s look at what the data is telling us…
5 reasons why learners need further literacy support after the pandemic
1. Australian learners did escape some of the worst of the pandemic learning loss… but they still desperately need further literacy support.
When we look at learning loss on a global scale, the data indicates that learners across the six states have been fairly lucky in that they haven’t experienced anywhere near the learning loss that their international peers have. 2022’s PISA scores largely pull level with those from 2018, pulling Australia into the top 10 of countries tested, which does largely seem to indicate that the pandemic had an easily rectifiable effect on frontline testing results.
…but it’s not that simple. The 2018 benchmarks are uncomfortably low: since international testing began 15 years ago, Australian students have seen one of the steepest achievement declines in the world. 10% of learners aren’t meeting NAPLAN standards in literacy. 20% of Year 9 boys are functionally illiterate. And commentators have been swift to say that even Australia’s entry into the PISA top 10 has largely been due to pandemic underperformance from other countries, rather than a shining example on the part of Australian learners.
2. Data also indicates that those with learning difficulties are experiencing more learning loss, and will need more ongoing support than ever before to buck the trend.
Although we don’t have any federal data on how learners with learning difficulties like dyslexia have progressed through the pandemic, international data backs up the theory that they’ve seen some of the worst of the effects.
And parent data from the ARACY Impact of Covid-19 in Australia on Children and Young People with Disabilities and their Families study suggests that students with learning difficulties experienced a disproportionate amount of disadvantage and learning loss due to school closures:
• 61% of parents of children with disabilities said that their children didn’t have adequate educational support during the pandemic
• Only 50% were felt to have received learning materials in an accessible format
• Access to human support dropped from 56% to 12% during the pandemic period
• And only 9% of learners with an IEP had it updated since the start of the pandemic.
3. More learners than ever before are becoming aware of having learning difficulties and neurodiversities. That not only means further literacy support, but that support has to go further, too.
We’ve got a generation who’s more aware and online than ever before, an increased social media focus on neurodiversity and inclusion, and a period in learning history where students have been learning in far greater proximity to their primary caregivers. It makes sense that diagnoses of conditions like dyslexia are on the increase, and it’s a good thing… but it also means that requests for support have seen a huge uptick, and schools have to resource further literacy support accordingly.
School budgets decreased over the pandemic period, and it’s left many public schools struggling to recruit and resource the amount of literacy support professionals that they need for every learner has access to the curriculum. And it means that the next generation of literacy support has to put cost at the centre of its functionality, without compromising on the way that it supports equality of access to reading, learning and creating.
4. Jobs expect the highest ever levels of reading skills and qualifications, so we can’t afford to let a need for further literacy support compromise learner futures.
Between 40% and 50% of Australian adults don’t have the literacy skills required to be able to fully participate in the work they do. And new data from the business sector indicates that post-pandemic, as many as 74% of businesses might be missing out on vital revenue and skills due to a need for further literacy support in their workforce.
When profit is on the line, businesses want the highest standards possible from the talent pool, and those with low literacy might find it far harder to make it to interview. This means it’s more vital than ever that we invest in learners and further literacy support systems in a way that prepares them for work while they’re still in school, and set them up for success whether they progress into TAFE, universities or straight into jobs.
5. Student mental health has been in decline for a few years, and the pandemic proved a catalyst for crisis. Reading books isn’t a bad form of support, but learners need to be able to access them.
Children and young people in Australia are in the middle of a nationwide spike in conditions like depression stress and anxiety, and schools are struggling to provide critical mental health support on such a scale. It may seem like a left-of-field suggestion at first, but reading for pleasure can actually provide a number of powerful mental health and learning benefits that can support learners alongside other interventions. It can also create a safe space to hone better reading skills in, in a way that helps combat a learner’s academic anxieties too.
But to do that, further literacy support has to be implemented in a way that ensures that these learners can access reading on their terms, in their spaces. It’s rare in the school day that students have an extended time available to read in, and many dislike reading in busy settings or in front of peers. So, reading support must be able to successfully transition into the home too, and not be limited to the classroom like human readers or screen-based technologies are.
When schools need further literacy support, we’re here to help with C-Pen Reader 2.
We’re supporting the next generation of secondary learners across Australia with award-winning reading support that’s equipped to take on the challenge. C-Pen Reader 2 makes decoding text easy for any learner who needs help with reading: it’s no bigger than a highlighter, fits in a pencil case and comes with headphones so that it can be used discreetly, without disturbing peers or causing readers to feel spotlighted.
It’s almost as simple as a highlighter too. Simply move the device across the page to start scanning and experience the words on the page though a customisable audio, where you can set a playback speed, word pause speed, and even your preferred accent or language.
It’s as simple as scan, listen, understand.
• Supports readers with dyslexia or other literacy needs
• Supports those learning in English as an additional language
• Use with headphones for discreet reading support
• There’s no need for Wi-Fi: work anywhere, anytime!
• Holds an 8+ hour charge for all-day reading and learning
• Boosts vocabulary and tackle difficult texts with inbuilt dictionary support
• Scans in multiple languages
• Customisable word pause setting and reading speed
To find out more about implementing further literacy support for better student outcomes or to request a free trial from the education experts, head over to C-Pen Reader 2 at Scanning Pens.
You can also learn more about supporting learners where you are in our Secondary Schools Resources Hub!
