A fresh focus on children’s literacy to ensure their lifetime learning capacity is the basis of a refreshed Literacy Guarantee developed to support parents, teachers and students.

The Guarantee will be supported by an expert advisory group to improve the overall literacy of South Australian students in public schools.

The work will be in addition to existing support provided to schools, particularly through the department’s successful Literacy Guarantee Unit, which provides intensive literacy coaching for teachers.

Under the new Literacy Guarantee, a range of work will be undertaken including, expanding the focus of literacy coaches to support schools with all aspects of reading; a stronger focus on literacy in preschool; developing additional resources for teachers; and providing free online support and resources for parents to use from birth onwards.

The program will also lead to the:

• Launch of a Reading Academy to support early career teachers in teaching reading – focused on providing mentoring and resources to ensure teachers start their careers with the strongest foundations to teach reading.
• Increased professional learning in literacy for teachers at all levels of schooling.
• Upskilling of preschool teachers in literacy using the department's early years literacy guidelines.
• Provision of free online resources for parents to help their children build literacy skills.

The initiatives will begin at the start of 2026 and will be fully rolled out the next year. This work is currently being scoped by a principal on assignment with the department and will be targeted at schools with high numbers of graduate teachers, with the program extended more broadly in following years.

The work will complement continued phonics screening checks, done with all year 1 public school students. The check is a short one-on-one assessment of 40 words, measuring how well students are learning to decode and blend letters into sounds.

Kidman Park Primary School Principal Amanda Walker said, over time, Kidman Park Primary School has made a massive shift in our approach to literacy which has seen significant improvements in our phonics screening results.

“Reading is fundamental to every core skill and improvements in this area gives children confidence in what they can achieve”.

“As a school, we have been working with the department’s Literacy Guarantee Unit over the past 12 months, with teachers having professional development and mentoring which has been really valuable”.

“Our families are also keen to be engaged, so the development of parent resources will be a great help as they are keen to access tools that can help them help their child”, said Ms Walker.

Screening check data from 2024 showed a trend of significant improvement since commencement in 2017, with 70% of students scoring at (or above) the expected achievement score.

This work also builds on the new English curriculum being rolled out, which has a stronger focus on developing a love of reading to ensure children consistently read throughout their schooling.