Literacy Impact Educational Services

05/06/2026

So looking forward to this day of Writing instruction with LDA. You do not want to miss hearing from the incredible Dr Karen Harris - guru and creator of SRSD who will be headlining the 2 day event.

Self regulated strategy development (SRSD) is the leading approach in teaching text level writing of any approach ever researched. The effect sizes speak for themselves and I cannot recommend it highly enough for every school.

Student writing achievement has declined over the past decade, yet writing remains one of the most important skills for success at school and beyond. Strong writing supports thinking, learning, communication and achievement across all subject areas.

Our 'Teaching Writing With Impact' course will explore what the evidence tells us about effective writing instruction and provide practical, research-informed strategies to help teachers develop confident and capable writers.

We are excited to welcome such respected professionals in the field of writing to share their knowledge on best practices for writing instruction.

All sessions will be recorded and available for 30 days so you can learn at your own pace and time.

Find out more at https://ldaustralia.org/events/

05/06/2026

We often confuse student data with diagnosis.
They are two vastly different things; especially when the data used has low validity in determining the pathway for next steps.

Low reading, spelling or writing assessment data tells us something is wrong/not on track/on track or above. It doesn’t automatically tell us why or what to do next.
A student might perform poorly because of weak reading accuracy, slow reading pace, limited vocabulary, poor background knowledge, spelling gaps, handwriting fluency, low reading volume OR.... because they have not had daily access to year level text.

These things are not the same problem and do not need the same response. The latter is a situation that is an equity issue that can be rectified at the whole class level through daily exposure to year level text with teacher modelling, choral reading, frequent checks for understanding, immediate corrective feedback- repeated over a week to build stamina, accuracy, pace and comprehension.

In addition, when schools use student data such as NAPLAN or PAT or a generic spelling test as the entry point to intervention or exclusion from whole class year level instruction, this is like prescribing an antibiotic to a low blood pressure result. They just don't equate and could have dire consequences.
This is why, in my School Improvement Blueprint™, we separate the ‘Issue’ from ‘Audit’ and ‘Diagnose’ stages of implementation before jumping to intervention and next steps.

When we use broad data to make precise decisions, we risk building pathways that do not actually close the gap. They may just mask the problems, or inadvertently, make things much worse. Our students’ literacy outcomes depend on our well informed, precise decisions- with prompt and accurate follow up actions.

If you or your school would like support in using literacy data to effectively inform instruction and intervention or to develop a decision making tree for assessment decisions and next steps, feel free to reach out.

03/06/2026

03/06/2026

The Secondary Literacy and Engagement Reset™

A pathway forward for secondary schools with lower secondary students with literacy difficulties.

The EOI close on Friday and will commence on 12th June for half a day each week over 6 weeks.

Love to hear from you if this sounds like you and your school. It only takes one or two 'champions' to start the legacy of literacy excellence in your school.

02/06/2026

Most schools approach literacy improvement by working on or ‘adding on’ what they can see.
A new phonics program. A writing framework. A different approach to the literacy block. Rich text unit resources. Professional learning on your staff development day. Introducing some high impact literacy routines.

These things matter and are worthwhile but for sustainable positive impact, they need to be viewed and planned through a system or macro lens first. If underlying structures, systems, barriers, preconditions or foundations are not addressed it is incredibly difficult to achieve the positive shifts we seek.

The Iceberg Model™ illustrates something I observe in schools every week: the practices that are visible above the waterline cannot sustain without the deeper structural conditions that sit beneath the surface being high quality and/or strong first.

Using the analogy, just below the waterline sits instructional expertise. Teachers who share a deep, common understanding of how students learn — grounded in cognitive load theory, the science of reading and writing, oral language development, and assessment-informed teaching. Not just awareness of these things but genuine embedded professional knowledge that is shared and agreed in schoolwide documents. Teachers can’t facilitate high impact teaching of resources or a program without high level understandings of the why, what and how with practice and feedback first. It’s like giving someone a car without a licence or maybe on their P’s at best.

Deeper still is instructional infrastructure- a carefully planned knowledge-rich curriculum, high impact structured literacy block. Agreed routines, lesson design. Coaching and feedback systems.

Below that sit the enabling conditions — the operational clarity that makes sustained improvement possible. High expectations for every student that lives in every example of questioning, opportunities to respond, feedback, student grouping and content provided.

And at the deepest level — the foundation that holds everything above it — sits moral purpose, a clear ‘why’ for improvement and strong leadership in a high trust culture.

The core insight of the model is that: visible instructional change succeeds only when there are deeper system conditions to support it.
Programs don't fail because they are bad programs (well there are some- hello whole language). They fail because the architecture beneath them was never built.

If your school is working hard on literacy and the results are not yet reflecting that effort — this model may explain why. The answer is rarely more effort at the surface. More often, it is deeper architecture and the wider system beneath.

I’d love to know if this resonates!

01/06/2026

Most Year 7 and 8 teachers are trying to do the impossible- teaching complex curriculum content to often high numbers of students who cannot yet independently access the text in front of them.

At the same time, they are trying to re-engage students who have experienced years of frustration and have quietly decided they are “bad at literacy”.

The consequences extend far beyond reading achievement.

When students cannot access the curriculum, they often disengage from learning and mind health scores also significantly decline (Sapiens Labs research).

Literacy opens doors to learning, engagement, wellbeing and future opportunities.

Last year, Monterey Secondary College, Nth Frankston, Victoria decided to tackle this challenge head on.

Within just five months:

• Year 7 students requiring intensive support in Oral Reading Accuracy reduced from 50% to 1.4%.

• Year 7 Students reading above benchmark in Accuracy increased from 11% to 37.1%.

• Students reading accuracy at benchmark increased from 18% to 47.1%.

• Simple, high-impact literacy routines became part of everyday classroom practice… and now even in Year 12 classes across subject areas.

• Teachers moved from saying, “These kids won’t choral read” to “I didn’t think they could do it, but they did.”

• Students reported feeling less anxious about reading in class, and some even described spelling as their favourite lesson.

The most important shift was not the data.

It was that students began experiencing success and teachers began seeing what was possible.

That is why I created the Secondary Literacy & Engagement Reset™.

Over six weeks, schools will learn where to start, what matters most and how to build a practical pathway forward for students who have already experienced years of literacy frustration and disengagement.

One committed leader and one Year 7 or 8 teacher is enough to be the change in your school.

Registrations of Interest for 8 schools for the inaugural cohort close this Friday. I can’t wait to partner with you.

24/05/2026

I’ve been reflecting on learnings from an outstanding keynote- Tara Thiagarajan at the DSF Literacy Services (The Dyslexia Speld Foundation of conference that focused on the concept of Mind Health and a Mind Health Quotient (MHQ).

Sapien Labs has developed an online assessment tool (free quiz) that measures mind health across 47 different dimensions. The MHQ dataset is based on responses from more than 3 million people across 130+ countries. The ‘managing to succeeding’ score is 100. Findings:

• MHQ scores remained stable until 2002–2007.
• Since then, there has been a significant decline in mind health globally.
Some of the poorest countries have the highest MHQ ratings.
• The decline has been particularly severe in the 13–17-year-old age group.
• Australian data has especially concerning trends, with average MHQ score of 5 in 13-17year olds as opposed to MHQ of 83 in over 55yo’s.
• The data suggests strong correlations between declining mind health and:
• the time a person first has own access to smartphones and tablets.
• Reduced time spent outdoors and in nature.
• Exposure to environmental toxins and plastics.
• Reduced family connectedness and sense of belonging.

Although the data was confronting, the encouraging message was that simple changes lead to significant improvements.

Two case studies were highlighted:

1. International American School in India
2. Summer Camp in Maine (USA)
Both settings implemented:
• Reduced technology exposure
• Increased outdoor activity.
• Greater engagement with nature.
• Increased exercise.
• Whole-food nutrition approaches.

Across both case studies, there were measurable improvements in MHQ scores over relatively short periods.

The most important takeaway was that many of the strategies associated with improved mind health are relatively simple and little to no cost:
• More time outdoors.
• Reduced screen exposure.
• Greater connection with nature.
• Stronger family and community connections; and sense of belonging
• Increased physical activity.
• Better nutrition.

My reflection- as a preventative MTSS/RTI universal screener for mind health, the MHQ could be a preventative measure for schools as a school-wide wellbeing screening tool.

A simple approach we had in place at one of my schools was that early-comers before school walked laps around the oval with myself or other Deputy Principal rather than sitting on a bench or just chatting. On reflection and knowing the benefit of outdoors, movement and nature on MHQ, it’s a simple strategy all schools could consider to get a few daily minutes of nature, outdoors, walking, connection time with the kiddos (and a preventative way to check in with students between the home-school transition).

Highly recommend the Sapiens Lab Report, website and Tara’s work.

Let’s start the conversation about turning this MHQ score around and share simple ways that we can put these recommendations into practice.
https://sapienlabs.org/global-mind-health-report/
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18/05/2026

There’s a big gap between the effort schools are putting in and the impact they are seeing in their students’ literacy results.

This was the central idea I shared last week at the DSF Conference on Leading Change: A Roadmap for Sustainable Literacy Improvement.

Over many years of working in literacy improvement across multiple school contexts, I frequently see the same pattern..

Schools are putting in so much work and time into school improvement through professional learning, coaching models, implementation of new programs or intervention but still there is frustration in the student data; or in cases where there is a positive change, the positive changes are short lived.

We have care, effort and commitment in spades across Australia but unfortunately we tend not to view school improvement with a system based lens.

Before any new changes or improvement foci, schools need clarity on two things:

1. what strong literacy systems actually look like (the conditions and architectural framework for school excellence) and
2. how sustainable implementation occurs over time (the how of evidence informed implementation science within short sharp cycles of improvement).

That thinking led to the development of:
The Architectural Framework for School Excellence™,
The Implementation Pathway for School Excellence™,
The School Improvement Blueprint™,
and The Literacy Impact™ Formula.

At the centre of this work is a simple idea:

Literacy success becomes far more predictable when schools build strong enabling conditions built on strong foundations and preconditions for school improvement, implement the changes with a clear direction of where they are heading in an implementation/action plan; strengthen and codify practice and curriculum documents through ongoing cycles over time, and reduce instructional variance across classrooms.

Despite what is often the reality, literacy improvement is rarely about adding or improving one more thing. More often, it is about aligning the things that already exist into a coherent, sustainable system.

Literacy Success = (C × P × Cy) × S ÷ LV
C = Conditions
P = Pathway
Cy = Precision Cycles
S = Sustainability
LV = Low Variance

The formula is designed to simplify in a visual what is an incredibly complex challenge for school leaders and educators; and to show where if one part is absent, improvement is unlikely.

When we embed the essential elements of literacy improvement with alignment, purpose and measurable goals, in clear cycles of improvement with low variance across classrooms, schools begin to experience clarity. With clarity and the right system structures in place, schoolwide literacy improvement for all students becomes possible 📚💥

Are there any parts of the formula that may be a weak link in your context? What is the strongest aspect?

I’ll be running an online one day short course on this shortly, so keep an eye out if you’d like to build sustainable literacy improvement in your context! 🏆

📚Please note: these visuals and formula are all underpinned by multiple change models, researchers, education science; and proven experience in literacy transformations across multiple states of 20+ schools.

14/05/2026

Brilliant conference yet again, DSF! I can’t recommend this event enough.. put it in your calendars for 2 years time from now, in Perth! 🌏🦘