We're back with the literacy showdown. As Hunter pushes structured literacy to rescue Australia's readers, Luqman tags her from the trenches. Can policy catch up to practice?
October 2024: Hunter escalated with her Grattan manifesto, slamming the 1970s "whole-language" hangover – where kids guess words from context – for leaving a third of Year 5s unable to decode proficiently.
Good evening, and welcome to Evening News. In a nation where one in three children battles to read proficiently, the stakes couldn't be higher: disengagement, behavioral issues, and a lifetime of barriers. Leading the charge is Jordana Hunter, Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, whose data-driven pleas for reform are shaking up classrooms. But as her blueprint gains traction, voices from the frontlines – like veteran educator Luqman Michel question if it's addressing the real flaws in how we teach. Tonight, we unpack the crisis, from stark NAPLAN gaps to a bold "Reading Guarantee," weaving in key insights from blogs, reports, and a tweet that's gone viral in edutwitter circles. Our story starts with a preventable national shame.
