TRANSCRIPT
It's been described as a "preventable tragedy".
Decades of disagreement about how to teach reading... leading to under-performance in Australian schools.
The Grattan Institute's 'Reading Guarantee' report revealing in the typical Australian classroom of 24 students, eight will not be proficient at reading.
The report's co-author, Anika Stobart, says disadvantaged students perform significantly worse than advantaged students… although many advantaged students are also lagging behind.
"Half of the students in regional and rural areas are not meeting grade level expectation in reading and this is even higher in indigenous students."
The Institute now recommends governments and school systems commit to "structured literacy", a mix of direct instructions and phonics, or the way letters and words sound, instead of what Professor Therese Hopfenbeck from the University of Melbourne describes as a whole approach.
"The whole language movement students were able to understand a lot of words by simply being read stories, by reading it themselves and they were supposed to figure out a lot themselves. But some students and some student groups we know, they need a little bit more help to actually help with decoding and that's where we sometimes use phonics. Please don't go from whole movements to just phonics only. Try to find the right balance."
The Institute... is also calling for a new ambitious target... to lift the level of proficient readers to 83 per cent in the next decade and 90 per cent in the long term.
The Grattan Institute is estimating this so-called failure... will cost the Australian economy 40 billion dollars over the students' lifetimes.
"These students would have lower earning over their lifetimes but that governments would also lose out on tax revenue and pay more for health, welfare and justice."
The report also found that a lack of funding at schools... is preventing struggling students from getting the support they need... prompting calls for more investment...
This suggestion was echoed by the Education Minister Jason Clare... who's pushing for even further steps.
"We've gotta make sure that our public schools are properly funded but we've also gotta make that money work. We gotta make sure that we invest that money into things that we know work that are gonna help kids who fall behind to catch up and catch-up tutoring is one of those things."
Crucial steps for students and the Australian economy.
