Too many students in Australia can’t read properly.

Even in the highest-achieving states, 1 in 4 students are not proficient, and these ratios increase as we move through the Northern Territory, South Australia and Tasmania. But reading is a foundational skill – and failing to achieve proficiency results in high costs for children and young people, as well as the country as a whole. These low-proficiency readers are projected to cost the Australian economy $40 billion over their lifetime, as well as experience a far higher degree of unemployment and poverty on average: Jobs and Skills Australia predicts that 9 out of 10 roles in the next five years will require some kind of post-school education, and that’s going to be difficult for school leavers with low literacy.

Solutions have to be sourced, and fast – and that’s where the Reading Guarantee comes in.

In this blog we’re going to explore the scale of the reading needs in Australia, and how the proposed reforms under the Grattan Institute’s Reading Guarantee fit in. We’re then going to take a look at how reading technologies like C-Pen Reader 2 can support the six-step recovery program.  

➡️💡 [ Wait… what’s the Reading Guarantee?]

Understanding the scale of the problem

📊 2023’s NAPLAN data shows 1 in 3 students aren’t meeting grade-level reading expectations – meaning that they’ll be set to struggle to access grade-level work throughout the curriculum, not just English.

📊 PISA data indicates that reading performance has been tracking backwards. Between 2000 and 2018, the average achievement of Year 10 students fell by eight months of learning.

📊 Not many students are excelling at reading, either: only 12% of Australian readers are classed as PISA ‘high performers’ compared to 22% in Singapore.

Reading needs predominate in economically disadvantaged demographics

Disadvantage appears to be the most dominant long-term reading progress-limiting factor.

2023 NAPLAN results suggest that in Year 3, disadvantaged students were at least one year behind advantaged students in reading. By the time those students reach Year 9, that reading gap is more than five years.

Even in the ACT and in Victoria, the most socio-economically advantaged jurisdictions, around 25% of students still class as not being proficient in reading. According to PISA data, 1 in 15 students from advantaged backgrounds are still not proficient in reading.

Engineering a reading revival under the Reading Guarantee

Once students fall behind in reading, data indicates they stay behind. There’s no endgame recovery: The Grattan Institute’s The Reading Guarantee report links it to the Matthew Effect in its educational context, where early reading success prompts further reading, whereas early reading failure prompts less of it – i.e. accumulated advantage, or the (reading) rich get rich whilst the (reading) poor get poorer.

The Reading Guarantee is an educational initiative aimed at ensuring all students achieve a base level of reading proficiency. The Reading Guarantee Report, released by independent public policy thinktank the Grattan Institute in February 2024 details the nature of Australia’s reading gaps and provides us with a six-step framework to support learners toward a better, more productive reading future. It also advocates for change at a structural level to ensure that every educator in Australia has the resources, training and skills they need to turn the vast majority of school-age learners into confident readers.

The report's findings are currently being used to inform Australian educational policy across multiple states and territories. Its commentaries have already influenced commitments by education policymakers in New South Wales and Victoria to improve and refine curriculum materials and extend small-group tutoring programs. They’ve also been rolled into the Australian Education Ministers’ National Teacher Workforce Plan, meaning that these reforms are likely to become a powerful presence in the landscape of the education system within the scope of the new school year.

The Reading Guarantee’s Six-Step Recovery Plan with C-Pen Reader 2

C-Pen Reader 2 is a text-to-speech reading pen that supports learners with audio playback of the words on the page, making literacy development multi-modal and supporting retention, comprehension and the confidence to read independently.

It’s a game-changer for literacy support, and it’s adaptable and intuitive enough that it can support even the youngest learners as well as those with the most complex reading needs. Whether they’re language learners, have special educational needs or neurodivergent conditions like dyslexia, C-Pen Reader 2 can be customised to support unique learning needs in terms of accent, word pause and word delay, as well as giving learners all-important dictionary and practice modes to help them define new words and consolidate their skills.

…Here's how it can help schools across Australia navigate reading reforms on easy mode, as well as support learners with reading needs throughout the remainder of the school year.

⭐ Step 1: Commit to at least 90% of students becoming proficient readers.

The Reading Guarantee petitions education policymakers to commit to a goal of at least 90% of students reaching proficiency in reading, as measured by the proportion of students hitting the ‘strong’ or ‘exceeding NAPLAN category in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. It also advises they commit to a 10-year target of increasing the proportion of students across these year groups who reach proficiency based on state-level NAPLAN data – an uplift of 68% to 83% by 2033.

C-Pen makes supporting every student in the classroom possible.

Educators will need to use all the skills and tools at their disposal to effect this kind of swing. That means implementing reading support in a widespread way. When we’re aiming for 90% proficiency, we can no longer confine the benefits of text-to-speech to learners who are a long way behind, or have special educational needs.

C-Pen Reader 2 makes that possible by being adaptable and affordable at scale: it’s customisable for all levels and areas of need, and it’s far cheaper to resource than in-person reading support.

⭐ Step 2: Give teachers and school leaders specific guidelines on how to teach reading according to the evidence.

The report also suggests developing national teaching practice guidelines on reading instruction and reviewing existing guidance provided to schools and teachers, investing $20 million over the next five years to research the best ways to implement reading instruction.

How C-Pen supports teachers in new systems of instruction.

We know how stressful it is for teachers to have to change their instructional strategy. Everyone is a little less confident than they would be in an ideal world. But when we add in a reading pen, however, that dip in confidence gets repaired in a big way: it supports multiple evidence-based practices, and learners have the confidence to tackle word problems in a much more independent way. This improves teachers’ demand-to-bandwidth ratio and allows them more scope to focus on whole-class development.

⭐ Step 3: Ensure schools have the high-quality curriculum materials and assessments that teachers need to teach reading well.

This step entails teachers having access to all the tools they need to make reading happen. That means everything from primary school knowledge-rich materials for Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS), Science and English, decodable readers for government and low-fee schools, and reading intervention programmes for struggling readers. It also means one-off grant funding for the purchase of evidence-informed reading programs.

C-Pen makes sure your resources work as hard as they can.

Even the best reading resources aren’t going to work as well as they should if learners can’t access them in a meaningful way. That means access to reading is key, and C-Pen Reader 2’s elite, award-winning text-to-speech functionality means that these new resources are going to hit the mark every time, regardless of things like low reading confidence, dyslexia, or extensive learning needs.

It’s also a great tool to pair with intervention strategies across the board, as it helps learners who already have an identified need to take back control of their reading, as well as refine and bolster their skills using the pen’s built-in practice mode.

💡➡️ Want to see more about how C-Pen Reader 2 supports learners with disabilities or special educational needs? Check out how our tech is being used at Emu Creek State School, QLD!

⭐ Step 4: Require all schools to do universal screening of reading skills and help students falling behind to catch up

Under this guidance, all schools would be required to use reading assessment tools twice a year to screen students from Foundation to Year 2. All Primary schools would adopt a ‘response-to-intervention’ model’, with additional catch-up support to prevent them falling behind in reading.

More assessment = more demand.

When we look for more readers who need support, we’re going to find them.

…And when reading support has to go widespread, budgets are under pressure. And for a lot of schools this means that human reading support is no longer an option: these professionals are commanding ever-higher salary points, and it’s difficult to find enough to resource current demand, let alone a large uptick. But C-Pen Reader 2 ensures that same comprehensive support for a fraction of the cost, meaning that an increase in learners needing support doesn’t have to mean the end of a school’s budget freedoms, or a decrease in funding for other areas.

⭐ Step 5: Ensure teachers have the knowledge and skills they need to teach reading well, through essential training and new, quality-assured micro-credentials, and by creating specialist literacy teacher roles.

This step proposes a complete overhaul to the professional training regimen to boost understandings of literacy instruction and replenish the specialist support pool. It proposes installing a Literacy Instructional Specialist in every school, as well as boosting scholarship funding for university-level speech pathology and educational psychology qualifications.

We’re committed to supporting teachers and literacy experts in their professional development.

At Scanning Pens, we pride ourselves on providing schools with far more than the average reading pen supplier, and our expert educators have developed a wide range of implementation materials and best-practice guidelines to support schools and teachers in getting their reading technologies to have the biggest impact possible. Our guided training and resources mean that upskilling educators always have a wealth of information to boost their knowledge and develop their professional understandings of literacy support.

And the best part? They’re absolutely free.

⭐ Step 6: Encourage best practice teaching through closer monitoring and strengthened school performance reviews

The report recommends higher monitoring in the form of a nationally-consistent Year 1 phonics screening check, frequent and more comprehensive school reviews, and enhancing the performance reviews of school principals on the implementation of reading instruction.

Better results across the board with C-Pen Reader 2.

Reforms in the shape of more monitoring make for an anxious educational ecosystem, but that doesn’t have to be the case if we can tackle reading needs at their source in time for the new school year: a phonics screening check makes it easy to know which learners will benefit from reading pen support. And C-Pen Reader 2 is designed to make imparting evidence-based reading strategy as simple for educators as possible, as well as improve student reading levels across the board.

Progress checks aren’t as scary when you know your learners are set up for reading progress, and you’ve supported them with the best reading tech in Australia.

…But don’t just take our word for it.

It’s just past the middle of the school year, and right now, teachers know their individual learners’ reading strengths and weaknesses well. But these are cohorts still very much in post-pandemic recovery and an uncomfortable story about nationwide reading proficiency, it’s time to ask: could we be doing more to support reading and literacy as we address the scale of the problem and take note of Reading Guarantee reforms?

We’re here to help. We know that budgets are tight and that schools need to see EdTech in action before committing budget, and that’s why we offer educators a FREE trial of the award-winning C-Pen Reader 2, so that they can experience just how it empowers learning in their classrooms.

Head over to Scanning Pens to find out more about C-Pen Reader 2 and what it can do for your learners during the home stretch of the school year, and claim your FREE teacher trial here!

All statistical data (unless referenced) is from: Hunter, J., Stobart, A., and Haywood, A. (2023). The Reading Guarantee: How to give every child the best chance of success – The Grattan Institute, ISBN: 978-0-6457978-1-7.