The way children are taught to read in Victoria is about to change

“The reading wars aren’t quite over … I’m stepping on potentially a hand grenade, but I just believe this is so important,” he said.

“Reading is the foundation of a child’s education. If you don’t learn to read, you can’t read to learn. I want to essentially make best practice common practice in every classroom.”

Explicit instruction promotes direct teaching over student-led or inquiry-based learning, breaking down new concepts into smaller steps and modelling each step before progression. The method is underpinned by an evidence-based, scientific understanding of how students learn.

Systematic synthetic phonics teaches children the sounds of the English language and the letter combinations that make them. It’s different to balanced literacy, which includes some phonics but also uses strategies to guess words based on pictures and context.

Balanced literacy has been used by most primary schools and university education faculties since the 1970s. Advocates argue phonics overemphasises one aspect of the reading process.

Under the plan, there is a “clear expectation” that all government schools will implement a new teaching and learning model with explicit instruction at its core from next year. Schools that have not yet moved towards the model are expected to show planning for the change over the next three years.

The government has allocated $36.9 million to support a revision of the curriculum and the new reading position. This includes funding for 750 new explicit teaching lesson plans and other professional learning.

Victoria will keep its controversial English Online Interview literacy assessment, which cost more than $10 million to update last year but has been dismissed by experts as having ineffective phonics and elements of balanced literacy. It is being reviewed to ensure it aligns with the revised English curriculum.

Cognitive psychology professor Pamela Snow, from La Trobe University’s education school, applauded Carroll’s move but said it was the “beginning of the journey”.

Snow said it would be important to monitor the strategy’s implementation to ensure high quality and low variance, given schools had been until now “choosing their own adventure on reading instruction”.

“That’s the big risk here, that we go in with a bang and then schools are allowed to default back to some sort of mishmash of approaches,” she said.

“If it’s followed through and implemented carefully, we are going to see a significant uplift in Victoria.”

More than a quarter of Victoria’s students failed to meet new NAPLAN proficiency standards for literacy and numeracy in 2023.

Loading

The Grattan Institute this year called for a “revolution” to increase the level of proficient readers nationwide, saying decades of disagreement about how to teach reading and lack of explicit guidance to schools from state and federal governments were key causes of the problem.

Grattan Institute education program director Dr Jordana Hunter said Carroll’s announcement was a “huge step forward” which, if implemented effectively, would help students grow academically, not just in literacy but also in other subject areas including mathematics.

But the reform needed to be backed by sustained investment in professional development including classroom coaching, comprehensive curriculum materials and assessment tools, Hunter said.

She called on the government to publicly commit to a long-term target of 90 per cent of Victorian students reaching the NAPLAN proficiency benchmark in reading, and the immediate adoption of a publicly reported grade 1 phonics test.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said Victorian announcement was an important reform, which would be backed by changes to teaching courses at university. “The reading wars are over,” he said. “We have the evidence of what works and I am so glad to see Victoria rolling this out.”

Churchill Primary principal Jacquie Burrows was one of the first in the state to switch her school to an explicit teaching, structured literacy approach in 2019. She saw an improvement within the first 12 months, not only in academic results but also student engagement and wellbeing.

Burrows said she was excited that other schools would have the chance to replicate Churchill’s results. “If it leads to more kids having better outcomes at school, then it’s really positive,” she said.

Port Melbourne Primary School principal Tom Cain switched to evidence-based teaching at the start of this year.

Cain said the announcement would “grease the wheels” of his own transition, making guidance and lesson plans more available, but would allow schools with less resources to also reap the benefits.

“I think that’s where more clear direction from the system is going to be really important to compel schools to go down this path because I don’t think it has a downside for kids,” he said.

The Victorian opposition proposed the mandated use of phonics in Victorian schools before the 2022 election.

Carroll said studies had proved 20 years ago that systematic and explicit phonics was the most effective initial method to teach children to read. More recent reviews showed explicit teaching worked best for the largest number of students, particularly those who were struggling.

Loading

He said he was allowing three years to embed the new strategy statewide.

“Changing a classroom is one thing, changing an entire system is something else altogether.”

Carroll will speak on the move to explicit teaching and systematic synthetic phonics at The Age’s Schools Summit on Thursday. Follow our live blog at theage.com.au