How Australian Schools Are Shifting to Structured Literacy (and What to Read Next)

Something significant is happening in Australian schools. After decades of balanced literacy dominance, state and territory education departments are officially endorsing structured literacy, and teachers are feeling it in real time.

Several converging forces have accelerated the shift: the Five from Five campaign has built a strong evidence base and professional development community; New South Wales introduced a new English K-10 Syllabus in 2022 explicitly embedding systematic phonics; South Australia introduced a Year 1 Phonics Screening Check; Queensland and Victoria have updated their reading frameworks; the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 strengthened phonics requirements; and growing teacher awareness through social media communities and conferences.

Teachers navigating the shift need to: replace levelled reading groups with decodable text practice, reconsider reading-for-meaning strategies that bypassed phonics, audit and replace book stocks that don't align to phonics sequences, and find professional development on explicit phonics instruction.

For schools making the transition, a practical decodable book stock should cover readers at the beginning of their phonics journey (CVC and early blends), readers working through blends, digraphs, and long vowel patterns, readers tackling complex vowel teams and multisyllabic words, and intervention books for readers who need more time at any stage.

Innerlinks decodable books cover the full phonics range for Australian classrooms. Start building your classroom library at innerlinks.info.