Literacy Impact Educational Services

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.

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