How this school cracked the code to close the gap in early reading

Four years ago, testing at Djidi Djidi Aboriginal School revealed 16 of the 18 students in years 5 and 6 were at or below year 3 level in literacy.

"They struggled when they got to high school," principal Karen Augustson said.

"A lot of our kids have dropped out in year 8 and 9."

Today, all but one or two of the 23 students in the senior class are reading at their year level and well prepared to make the jump to high school.

"That result is better than what I could have ever expected,"

Ms Augustson said.

"We are now closing the gap, which is what we set out to do, and we can see it."

The principal attributes the success to a combination of the latest evidence-based teaching called explicit instruction, a trauma-informed practice known as the Berry Street Education Model and an embrace of Indigenous culture.

Staff and students start each day with a "yarning circle" to reflect and focus, then go straight into 90 minutes of highly structured literacy lessons.

The school, based just outside Bunbury in Western Australia, is in its fourth year of following the MultiLit literacy program, a commercial venture developed out of Macquarie University research to help older primary school students struggling with reading.

"Our school celebrates that. It's just amazing when we show the results, all the teachers just get pumped because that's what it's about, getting our kids ready for high school," Ms Auguston said.

Permission to 'take a breath and go back'

Though the school was able to adopt the new literacy teaching program because of Closing the Gap funding, the principal admits the first year was "a bit bumpy".

Teachers had to adjust to new practices, including not introducing new content until students had fully mastered a lesson.

"With teachers, we've all been wanting to go through the curriculum and get things done," Ms Augustson said.

Instead, she gave teachers permission to not move forward, even repeat lessons, until testing showed the students had fully comprehended a concept.

"Just stop, take a breath and go back," she recalled telling teachers.

Learning assistant Rebecca Calligaro, who leads the literacy program at the school, said it meant students were building strong foundations and nothing fell through the cracks.

"You're not asking a student that has no letter or sound recognition to all of a sudden put a book in front of them and say, 'Start reading' or, 'Spell this word'," Ms Calligaro said.

"If they don't have the ability and those foundational skills … that's what's very daunting and disheartening for students and when they start to switch off."

Ms Calligaro said the importance of setting students up with strong foundations in literacy and numeracy could not be understated.

"Our students here are our future elders and leaders of the community and that's something we're very proud of. We want to instil in them confidence and the keys they need to succeed," she said.

She said putting students in groups based on their level of comprehension, rather than age, and allowing them to move through the curriculum at their own pace built confidence.

That also meant there was "less shame, less escalation [and] better behaviour", she said.

"Our suspensions have dropped remarkably. Our behaviour is really high, kids don't feel embarrassed to read, they're keen to read, they're keen to learn."

'A rising tide lifts all boats'

Pamela Snow, the co-director of the Science of Language and Reading Lab (SOLAR) at Latrobe University, is an expert in explicit instruction.

Professor Snow said it has the best evidence base for teaching all students to learn to read successfully, including those who were neurodiverse or had experienced trauma.

"Trauma can have adverse consequences for the development of children's brains," she said.

"But being in calm, predictable classrooms where there are known routines, which is what occurs with systematic synthetic phonics instruction, is going to be good for those children.

"As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats, so this is beneficial for all students."

Despite many school systems embracing this method of teaching, Professor Snow was concerned a lack of monitoring made it hard to know if it was being implemented successfully.

"When we track closely what's happening, as we do in other fields like road safety and health, then we identify areas of strong performance that we can use to model from, and areas of weak performance where we can provide additional support."

She said, at its core, the explicit instruction teaching style lent on the philosophy that learning to read was "something that our brains can do, but our brains haven't evolved to do it on their own".

It contrasts with a style popular in the 1970s known as "whole learning", which posits that learning to read is easy and natural, and is what some experts blame for Australian kids' poor literacy results.

Professor Snow said nailing reading in primary school was "very high-stakes when it comes to academic engagement and success right across the curriculum".

"We know that if they don't master it after the first three years of school, [students] are often then on struggle street and stay on struggle street, not only for their school years, but right across their lives when it comes to literacy," she said.

Ms Auguston said the program provided a scalable solution for closing not just a stubborn Indigenous literacy gap, but concerning literacy results across entire school systems.

"I've worked in lots of schools, not just Indigenous schools, and if you hold this program tight and do it with fidelity, you'll make the difference too," she said.

"I'm 100 per cent sure other schools can replicate what we've done."