Literacy Impact Educational Services

The literacy/mental health link 

Many school leaders are seeing a rise in the number of students experiencing mental health and social-emotional difficulties in schools.

They are seeing case management lists growing, increasing levels of challenging behaviour, and more students struggling to engage in learning.

At the same time, Australia’s literacy data should concern every educator.

By Year 9, around one in three students are not meeting the expected writing standard, with sentence structure and punctuation remaining two of the weakest areas nationally.
These aren’t two separate issues.

A growing body of research has found a strong relationship between low literacy and poorer mental health and wellbeing. Research from Sapien Labs has also shown that the mental health of young people aged 13–17 has declined significantly since 2008, with the majority of Australian adolescents now falling within the Distressed range of the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ).

The literacy–mental health connection is real.
If we want to improve wellbeing, engagement and life outcomes for young people, improving literacy cannot remain an academic priority alone. It must become a whole-school wellbeing priority.

Every year we delay, the gap becomes harder to close.

The literacy/mental health link.

Many school leaders are seeing a rise in the number of students experiencing mental health and social-emotional difficulties in schools.

They are seeing case management lists growing, increasing levels of challenging behaviour, and more students struggling to engage in learning.

At the same time, Australia’s literacy data should concern every educator.

By Year 9, around one in three students are not meeting the expected writing standard, with sentence structure and punctuation remaining two of the weakest areas nationally.

These aren’t two separate issues.

A growing body of research has found a strong relationship between low literacy and poorer mental health and wellbeing. Research from Sapien Labs has also shown that the mental health of young people aged 13–17 has declined significantly since 2008, with the majority of Australian adolescents now falling within the Distressed range of the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ).

The literacy–mental health connection is real.

If we want to improve wellbeing, engagement and life outcomes for young people, improving literacy cannot remain an academic priority alone. It must become a whole-school wellbeing priority.

Every year we delay, the gap becomes harder to close.

It was such a pleasure to be back in Frankston today, working alongside the fantastic teams from Aldercourt Primary School and Mahogany Rise Primary School.

Walking through Aldercourt, you immediately get a sense of warmth, belonging and pride. From the acknowledgement of the local First Nations language, to Bunjil the Eagle watching over the school community, with each new student adding a stick to the nest as a symbol of belonging, every detail has been thoughtfully designed. The welcoming play spaces, beautiful library, student-centred displays and genuine care shown by staff all reflect a school culture where children are known, valued and supported.

Today’s Curriculum Day focused on refining our agreed high-impact instructional practices and strengthening text-level writing through SRSD. It was wonderful to see such thoughtful professional dialogue, shared commitment and a collective determination to keep improving outcomes for every student.

This network continues to go from strength to strength, and I have no doubt the impact will continue to grow.

Thank you for having me today—especially Matt, Raelene, Jack, Jane, Rachel and Jas. I always leave inspired after spending time with your teams. Watch this space!

One of the reasons literacy improvement stalls is that schools often start with the visible layer of the work.

A program, a scope and sequence, a new spelling approach, a writing resource, a fluency routine or an intervention approach. Because these are the things we can see, they can start to feel like we are making the difference required.

But the visible layer is not always the starting point.
Before a school decides what to implement, leaders need to understand what problem they are actually trying to solve.

If students are not progressing in reading, is the issue sitting in phonemic awareness, decoding, accuracy, fluency, oral language, vocabulary, background knowledge or comprehension? Or a combination, and what is underlying this? Higher dosage needed, comprehension monitoring instruction, retrieval practice, an actual specific learning disorder?

If writing is not improving, is the issue sitting in transcription, sentence construction, planning, vocabulary, text structure, background knowledge, stamina or the quality of explicit modelling and guided practice? Why are students not motivated to write? Where does the hurdle occur and why?

If intervention numbers are growing, is the issue that students need more support, or is the school seeing the downstream effect of inconsistent Tier 1 instruction?

This is why I talk about literacy improvement as something that has to be built. It can not be a program sitting on top.

It requires a leadership and implementation process that helps the school understand the issue, plan the response, test the work, review the evidence and strengthen the system over time.

That is what Building Literacy Excellence™ is designed to support. National Founding Cohort launching in Term 3, 2026. So excited to share it tomorrow.

Find out about the layers beneath what we see and access a heatmap tool for your school in the Literacy Improvement Iceeberg webinar tomorrow.
Closing at 5pm Brisbane time today.

I’ve been thinking about “solutionitis” - a pattern I see constantly in literacy improvement.
A school team can be working incredibly hard, investing in a structured literacy program, resources, assessment and routines. Yet student data still may not be improving. This is rarely about effort or care - it’s because literacy improvement is often bolted on before the school’s context has been understood.

A program is introduced before leaders are clear on instructional consistency, dosage or responsive teaching, and may overlook Education Assistants, who, up-skilled, could give in-the-moment feedback.

A routine is added before clarifying the learning goal, text complexity and response opportunities - or are we just ‘doing xx routine’ without considering impact?

An intervention starts before asking whether the numbers needing it point to a Tier 1 issue, whether it targets the gap, and whether there’s a clear exit date - or are students ‘doing intervention’ indefinitely, with no urgency to catch up?

We jump to the solution too often, without understanding what’s underneath. It’s like a GP prescribing a mental health plan without a thorough assessment. No program is impactful if students lack a warm, respectful relationship with their teacher, where they feel seen - a foundation of schoolwide excellence, and a ‘brick’ to be addressed first if missing.

Sustainable excellence begins with understanding the issue beneath what we see, examining the data, developing a precise plan, then implementing it in cycles, returning to evidence to ask: is this transforming outcomes for all students?

Literacy improvement has to be built, not bolted on. That’s the core of Literacy Impact™️ and Building Literacy Excellence™️ — a staged pathway from where your school is now, through the ‘bricks’ stalling growth, to schoolwide impact.

Direction for leaders | Clarity for teachers | Excellence for students
National cohort launch begins Week 7, Term 3 - reach out for a chat.

Ref: Evidence for Learning, “Four issues schools face using evidence,” Vaughan & Roberts-Hull, 2017.

I have been thinking about the idea of “solutionitis” in school improvement, because it is one of the patterns I see constantly in literacy improvement.

A school team can be working incredibly hard. They may have invested in a structured literacy program, ready made resources, assessment tools, intervention, professional learning and routines across the literacy block.

And yet, the student data still may not be improving. This is rarely because of a lack of effort or care on behalf of the school.

But instead it is because literacy improvement is often being bolted on before the actual school context and ecosystem as a whole has been understood.

A program is introduced before leaders are clear about instructional consistency expectations, dosage, formative assessment in the moment responsive teaching or a clear data decision-making pathway for identifying additional support needed. It may not have included an undervalued resource in our Education Assistants who if up-skilled and empowered could be a valuable additional resource for in the moment corrective feedback during these lessons.

A routine may be added before the school has clarified what the primary goal of the learning is. What level of text complexity is expected, what does the routine look like in practice, have teachers had the routine modelled to themselves first. What is the expected number of response opportunities for students in each of these routines? Or are we just 'doing xx routine' in our literacy block each day without considering the impact on student learning.

An intervention is started before the team has asked whether the number of students needing intervention is actually pointing back to a Tier 1 issue. Is our intervention approaches targeting the exact need or gap for the students? Do we have a clear entry and planned exit date or are students just 'doing intervention' in an ongoing capacity where there is no sense of urgency for them to catch up to their peers.

This is where in literacy improvement we jump to the solution far too often - starting with the thing we can see. The program, routine, resource or slide deck, the intervention group. This is like a GP prescribing a mental health plan without doing a thorough assessment on the person as a whole. Schools are no different. No program or routine is going to be impactful if students do not have a warm, mutually respectful relationship with their teacher, where students feel seen. This is one of the foundations of schoolwide excellence and if this is not evident in every part of the school, then this is a 'brick' that needs to be addressed for any programs to be successful.

Sustainable school excellence begins with understanding the issue beneath what we see, looking carefully at the data behind the issue/current state of play, developing a precise plan of action, and then implementing the Action Plan in focused cycles where leaders and teachers come back to the evidence of student progress and ask: Is this actually transforming student literacy outcomes where all students are making significant gains?

Literacy improvement has to be built, not bolted on.

That is the core underpinning of Literacy Impact™ and Building Literacy Excellence™.

A clear staged, structured implementation pathway and partnership from where your school is now, to unpacking the deeper layers or 'bricks' that may be stalling growth; to a clear individualised pathway for improvement- to school wide sustainable impact.

Direction for leaders | Clarity for teachers | Excellence for students

The national cohort launch begins in Week 7 of Term 3. Reach out if you’d like to have a conversation.

“Solutionitis” Reference: Evidence for Learning, “Four issues schools face when using evidence for improvement”, Dr Tanya Vaughan and Katie Roberts-Hull, 30 August 2017.

I’ve been thinking about something that was discussed at the DSF Conference by Kris Boulton.

We can easily be misled into believing students are comprehending what they are reading by the questions we ask.

Let me share an example:

The plifeth flaffled frebbily beside the gangoose while its hembershams watched.

Now answer these questions:
What did the plifeth do?
What stood beside the gangoose?

You can probably answer them.
The plifeth flaffled.
The plifeth stood beside the gangoose.

But now answer these instead:
What is this sentence about?
What is going on here?

Suddenly, the limitations in our understanding become obvious. We don’t have enough vocabulary, background knowledge or understanding to make sense of the sentence. We don’t have a mental model of what is happening.

Can we read it? Yes.
Can we answer questions about it? Yes. We can identify the relevant facts in the text and connect them to answer the questions.

But if I asked, “What is going on here?” or “Explain this sentence in your own words,” how would you go?

How often do we see students being asked questions that they can simply fish around in the text for, locate the answer and respond correctly? A child could potentially score 100% on those questions and still have very little understanding of what they have actually read.

This is why interspersed open-ended queries (Questioning the Author) and gist statements (Vaughn & Spear-Swerling) are so powerful. They require students to articulate what they understand about the text rather than simply retrieving and connecting facts.

That gives us a much more valid indication of whether a student is actually constructing meaning.
As Kris said—and as we already know—our goal is for students to be making meaning.

The challenge for us as educators is to ensure we provide students with opportunities to do so.

If you’d like to learn how to ensure your practices are maximizing reading comprehension across all subject areas, check out www.literacyimpact.com.au online masterclasses for teachers and school leaders, or join me for The Literacy Improvement Webinar on Wednesday.

👇 Answers to the gangoose and plifeth mystery are in the comments.

We taught it does not mean they learnt it.

“We are teaching structured literacy. We are following the program. We are doing the screening when it tells us to do it. So why isn’t it showing in our students’ progress?”

Somewhere between the structured literacy lessons, the practice, the review, the feedback and the checking for understanding, student learning may not yet be secure enough for students to have it mastered

Literacy improvement cannot sit only at the level of program delivery.

Schools need a shared understanding of what effective teaching looks and also about how students learn best and how to pivot responsively in the micro moments of each lesson.
How much modelling is enough? How do we know when students are ready to practise? Who is responding and how often? Who is not? What feedback is being given? What happens when the same students are still making the same errors?

The goal is not for teachers to say, “I taught the lesson.”
The goal is for more students to leave the lesson able to do something they could not do before.

This is why schools need the systems, instructional clarity and leadership structures and support around quality teaching and impactful learning, not just the programs themselves.

Join me next Wednesday for a 90 minute webinar on The Literacy Improvement Iceberg to unpack the deeper essential layers of maximizing student growth and why the lesson may not be translating to learning.

Such a privilege to be a guest judge for the Christ the King, Beaconsfield, Speak up Awards today and to see the SRSD writing instruction transformed into inspiring, moving, funny and sometimes almost tear jerking public speaking persuasive and informative pieces. Topics ranged from Women’s Empowerment, Rottnest Island, ADHD, Blobfish and Shakespeare.

When students can turn their personal opinion on a topic into a well structured quality persuasive text, it means they have the life skill to be able to advocate for themselves and others; and when they can effectively write an informative piece, they have a life skill to effectively share and explain factual content. I think sometimes we underestimate the value of this.

Thank you to the wonderful team at CTK, Sabrina Reardon and my fab co-judge Nick. It was a very special afternoon to be part of your wonderful school community. Huge congratulations to all of the students and prize winners today.

Like the tip of an iceberg, most literacy improvement efforts focus on what can be seen.

But transformative literacy change for our students requires schools and systems to tackle the whole iceberg from the bottom up.

The Literacy Improvement Iceberg™ helps school leaders identify the issue/s underneath the issue, so they can see where the system may be leaking impact and what needs to be strengthened next.

In this session, you will:

🧊Understand why effort at the surface rarely creates sustained literacy improvement.
🧊Identify the deeper layers identify the visible and invisible layers that allow effective teaching, learning, assessment, intervention and implementation, with improved student outcomes, to hold over time.
🧊Learn the common misconceptions that cause literacy improvement to stall.
🧊Explore the architectural components of school wide instructional excellence.
🧊Complete a practical School Improvement Heat Map based on your own school context.
🧊Learn how the Architecture for School Excellence™ and the Implementation Pathway™ support sustainable school improvement.
🧊Leave with one to three high-impact priorities for your next stage of improvement.

This workshop is for:
Principals
Deputy Principals
Assistant Principals
Literacy Leaders
Instructional Leaders
Middle Leaders
School Improvement Teams
Aspiring Leaders who are a ‘champion’ in their school

It will be especially relevant if your school is:
working incredibly hard but not yet seeing the literacy growth you expected
seeing too much inconsistency across classrooms or year levels
concerned about the number of students needing intervention
trying to strengthen Tier 1 instruction and what clarity on the highest leverage aspects
wanting greater alignment across literacy, curriculum, assessment and intervention
collecting data but still needing clearer guidance about what to do next
trying to move from pockets of strong practice to a consistent schoolwide approach
ready to move beyond isolated initiatives
wanting a clearer and more practical pathway for sustainable improvement

Why this matters

Literacy improvement is not sustained by one program, one professional learning day, one assessment schedule or one committed leader carrying the work. It is also not sustained when school leaders and teachers are feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.
It is sustained when the architecture underneath the work is strong enough to hold it.
When leaders are clear, teachers are supported, expectations are shared, data is understood, implementation is sequenced and everyone can see what is being built, school improvement becomes less dependent on individual effort and more embedded in the way the school works.
That is when literacy improvement for students starts to transform schoolwide.

Date and time

Thursday 30 July 2026
10:00am-11:30am WST
Live online
A recording will be provided to view within one week if you can’t make the time.

Hope to see you there! ❄️⛸️

https://events.humanitix.com/the-literacy-improvement-iceberg-tm