Hundreds of teachers, school principals and education experts will gather at the Literacy Guarantee Conference in Adelaide today to learn new ways to boost student literacy.

This comes ahead of the first Year 2 Phonics Screening Checks taking place later this year as part of the Department for Education’s renewed Literacy Guarantee to better support parents, teachers and students to improve the overall literacy of South Australian students in public schools.

The conference, the first of three being held this year, will examine topics including dyslexia, Inclusive Technology and phonics. Five hundred tickets to the event being held at the Adelaide Convention Centre were sold out in just over one week to 500 regional and metropolitan educators.

Keynote speaker Dr Nathaniel Swain, a teacher, instructional coach, writer and expert in comprehension, will help teachers learn practical strategies to enable students to become stronger, more thoughtful readers.

The Department’s Literacy Guarantee Unit, which provides intensive literacy coaching for classroom teachers, is also receiving strengthened support this year. A range of initiatives including the launch of the Literacy Academy and free online resources, will help teachers and parents with all aspects of reading from birth onwards.

The boost in literacy programs will be supported by the introduction of a new phonics screening test in Term 3 for year 2 students. Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds and is critical for learning to read.

Up until this year, only year 1 students in public schools took part in a short one-on-one assessment of 40 words, measuring how well students are learning to decode and blend letters into sounds. In Term 3 this year, Year 2 Phonics Screening Checks will be introduced to check the progress of students who did not reach the benchmark score of 28 or more in 2025.

Results will indicate those students who have caught up and mastered enough of the phonics code to access the curriculum heading into year 3, and those who will continue to need ongoing additional support.

Chief Executive, Professor Martin Westwell said the Department is constantly reviewing its data and research to ensure children and young people’s reading abilities are being supported.

“The Literacy Guarantee Conferences enable educators to learn and share leading strategies to support learners to develop foundational literacy skills as a key cornerstone of the Strategy for public education”, said Professor Westwell.

“Ensuring learners of all abilities, from all social, cultural, community and family backgrounds can improve and build their literacy will help to empower them to step into the future with confidence and with the skills needed to thrive”.