Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the motion of the member for Lyons, and in doing so I acknowledge the fact that if you have not acquired good, strong reading and writing skills it can affect you throughout your life. In a previous life I worked with people who injured themselves at work, and, once they had injured themselves at work, if they did not have the ability to read and write effectively or did not have good numeracy, it impacted on their ability to find work in the future.

This government has as a priority investing in education, and one of its highest priorities has been to improve national numeracy and literacy. Every Australian has access to a world-class education to reach their potential. The government has invested over $65 billion in schools over four years—double what the coalition government spent in their last term.

Mr Deputy Speaker Oakeshott, I am sure you would be aware of the impact that the extra money has had on schools in your electorate. Under the Smarter Schools National Partnerships program there is $2.5 billion in three smarter schools national partnerships. There is also the Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership, which has really benefited those students in Shortland electorate who are disadvantaged in one way or another.

It is only right that I share with the House just how many schools in Shortland electorate have benefited from the government's programs. They are: St Brendan's Catholic school at Lake Munmorah; St Pius X Primary School at Windale, which has the lowest SES of any school in New South Wales; Gorokan Public School; Gwandalan Public School; Lake Munmorah Public School; Mannering Park Public School; Windale Public School; Gateshead Public School; Gateshead West Public School; Northlakes High School; and Northlakes Public School. All these schools have a significant level of disadvantage and students who struggle with literacy and numeracy, and all these schools have benefited from the government's extra investment in literacy and numeracy. This government is about ensuring that all students have the opportunity to have a good start in life. I would like to refer to the other important aspect of this motion, and that is about making 2012 a year of reading. It was, I believe, in February that the Prime Minister announced a program to encourage children and parents to read together. That is probably one of the greatest things that a parent can give a child in their education—sitting down, reading with them, teaching them the value of reading and teaching them how important it is to spend that time together. It is actually a bonding time. We all know that children's brains develop more rapidly in the earlier years. It is widely recognised that sharing books really helps children with their literacy skills when they go to school. This is a great program that is benefiting students throughout Australia.

In addition to the programs that I have already mentioned, the National School Chaplaincy Program, a student welfare program that has been extended by this government, gives support to children and helps them. There have been a number of schools in the Shortland electorate that have benefited—Belmont Christian College, Belmont High School, Gorokan High, Kahibah Public School, Northlakes High, Whitebridge High, Belmont North Public School, Budgewoi Public School, Gorokan Public School, Swansea High School and Warners Bay High School. This is support for children to help them improve their literacy and numeracy abilities.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion put forward by the member for Lyons to recognise that 46 per cent of Australians do not have the functional literacy to enable them to undertake more than the very basic tasks in life. I would support very strongly his comments this morning about developing a reading culture within a home in which a parent or caregiver or those who are older read to a child. It is through that process that you acquire an understanding of language and the context of the use of words. You hear the story and then you have the discussions around it. But if 46 per cent of Australians do not have a functional level of literacy then that will be a challenge in many homes. So to some extent we are going to have to be innovative and creative in our thinking as to how we develop that reading culture.

I once learned a salient lesson at a family breakfast that I was invited to. I was watching and saw an incredible activity by a mother who could not read. She got her children to tell her what was written on the packets or the containers within the kitchen and got them talking about it. At another point I saw her use a book and get the kids to tell her the stories so that she had an understanding, but she would question them.

Families, parents and caregivers are really the first point of education for all children, from the conversation that a mother has with her child in the first hours of life right through to those formative years when they go to school—but it does not stop there. It is important that we as adults play a critical role in reading to a child. Reading to your child provides the foundation to learning to read but also the acquisition of the knowledge of English.

English has a total of 550,000 words, but 2,000 words make up 90 per cent of most speech and 400 words make up 65 per cent of most writing. English has 26 letters and only 44 sounds and there are only 70 main spelling combinations. Half the key words are phone—that is, a single basic speech sound—but half are not. In the reading process that is explicit in the way that an adult reads to a child. That hearing is like practising anything that we do. Through that process we encourage the growth of their reading development and their speech and language acquisition but also an understanding of the world around them because it gives them access to information. I feel sad when I see adults who cannot fill in forms, whose functional literacy is affected by the fact that they did not have the opportunity to acquire language and acquire a level of learning that, had they been involved in a family that did reading and read to them, may then have changed the context of their life.

I certainly would support the member for Lyons in urging all members to participate in promoting their annual national reading day in their electorates because it would give them the opportunity to have conversations with people and to develop an awareness of how important reading is in local schools, communities and libraries. Sometimes we are highly visible at functions. For a change, it would not hurt us to be highly visible sitting in a library reading to a small group of kids. It would change the perception that parents have of us and might turn around some of the negativity. Often when we undertake a simple task, we can impact in a way that is far beyond our expectations. The motion of the member for Lyons goes to the very critical issue of the importance of the whole learning pathway: the combination of extension of learning through reading, through expression, through explaining. Enriching the learning environment of the child before they go to school or even out of school time is a very powerful way of embedding in our children practices that will stand them in good stead for the future, both in their employment pathways and in their opportunities for education. I am pleased to support the motion.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is the first time I have addressed the chamber while you have been in the chair, Deputy Speaker Oakeshott, so I also add my congratulations to you for joining the speakers panel. In the same vein, I have been following the debate from earlier today on the motion of the member for Lyons and I commend all those who have contributed to it. It is a particularly important issue that many of us feel very strongly about.

The member's motion correctly identifies that the 2006 ABS Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey, which is the most recent national survey of adult literacy and numeracy and the competency in those matters, found that 46 per cent of Australians aged 15 to 74—that is, about seven million people—have prose literacy levels below the level that COAG has since agreed is needed for an individual to meet the complex demands of work and life in a modern economy.

The survey was also conducted internationally and showed comparable and concerning results for the developed English-speaking nations such as Canada and New Zealand. These results suggest that there is a significant number of Australian adults today who do not have the reading or writing skills needed to participate effectively and confidently in a modern economy. The jobs of the future will require higher skills and this means that those without adequate reading and writing skills will be left behind when it comes to getting a job, to having a career path, to changing jobs or indeed to improving their qualifications over their lifetime. And, as many speakers indicated, the low-literacy issue is not just an issue for jobseekers and workers who want to thrive in their job but it also means they will find it difficult in today's workplace.

Our communities across our society and each of us in this place would be aware that our institutions are making much more use of digital technology and online media to communicate. We are using it to provide access to news and information, to access essential government services, and to run small businesses and enterprises. Those who do not have the founding reading and writing skills required to effectively utilise technology will find it increasingly difficult to participate fully in our community in ways that many of us take for granted. The foundations for strong literacy skills are laid in early childhood and built on at school. However, there are many Australian adults who left school without adequate literacy skills and who would benefit from literacy support and training. It is the case that many adults are unaware of their potential to benefit from some form of additional literacy learning, or they are deterred by the difficulty of fitting learning activities into their busy day-to-day life, or they are put off by the stigma that they might feel is attached to having trouble with reading. This is why it is so important for governments and communities to promote strong literacy through initiatives such as the National Year of Reading and the national day of reading. They are important ways of raising awareness.

For many Australians, developing their reading and writing skills is a critical first step on the path to a job or qualification. In my own portfolio as Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and Skills, this government has made significant investments in projects and initiatives to improve the literacy and numeracy of Australian adults. Since 2010 the Labor government has allocated significant additional funding of over $250 million over four years to programs that improve adult literacy, including the Workplace English Language and Literacy program; the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Program; and the Language, Literacy and Numeracy Practitioner Scholarship Program. Indeed, we have worked with states and territories to take forward a National Foundation Skills Strategy for Adults, which will be released later this year. These programs and these initiatives continue to complement the Labor government's effort to support the quality of early childhood education, to improve literacy and numeracy results in schools, and to reform our training system, all of which should provide stronger skills to Australians.

I particularly want to commend the points made by the previous speakers about taking the opportunity of reading to young people and to acknowledge that for many adults with literacy problems not being able to read to their own children is a major impetus to getting literacy skills themselves. It is important that we have opportunities in place, when they realise that, for them to take that up. I support the member for Lyons's motion, and I would encourage all MPs, as others have said, to promote national reading day in their communities.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Initially encouraged by my mother, Eileen, I have always been an avid reader, a passion which led me to a career as a journalist and newspaper editor. However, not everyone enjoys reading and, more importantly, not everyone can read. The National Year of Reading is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It is also about supporting reading initiatives while also respecting the oral tradition of storytelling. This year will help people discover and rediscover the magic of books. We, as Australians, will work to become a nation of readers.

Three goals have been identified for the National Year of Reading which will help turn Australia into a nation of readers and encourage a reading culture in every home. These goals are for all Australians to understand the benefits of reading as a life skill and catalyst for wellbeing; to promote a reading culture in every home; and to establish an aspirational goal for families, of parents and caregivers sharing books with their children every day.

Reading improves vocabulary, comprehension and overall literacy. Teachers also recognise students who are readers as better spellers and writers. I am proud to say my 21-year-old daughter, Georgina, is in her fourth and final year of a double arts and secondary teaching degree majoring in English and drama at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga and today began her first week of her professional experience teaching block at Griffith High School. She recognises how important the written and spoken word is in this busy world in which texting abbreviations is, sadly, making an all too prevalent incursion into our literacy and daily lives. Hopefully she and her university colleagues will pass on those valuable, some might say old-fashioned, literacy traits of yesteryear.

It is pleasing to note a study in 2009 reported 72 per cent of children aged between five to 14 years of age reported reading for pleasure outside of school hours during the two school weeks prior to being interviewed. An adult literacy and life skills survey in 2006 found that reading is a favourite activity for about 61 per cent of Australians aged 15 years and over. The survey also found women like reading, with more than 73 per cent of women responding that reading was a favourite activity, compared to only 50 per cent of men. Of the people surveyed, it also found 77 per cent read newspapers, 58 per cent read magazines, and 48 per cent read books at least once a week. However, the survey revealed almost half—46 per cent—of all Australians did not have the minimum reading skills to read a newspaper or a recipe. Furthermore, one in five with a bachelor degree was not literate enough to meet the complex demands of life and work in a knowledge-based economy. The survey highlighted that literacy problems grew with age, and were highest, at 73 per cent, among the 64- to 74-year-old age bracket.

While this age bracket may have the highest literacy problems, we are also facing the growing technology age, and it is becoming difficult to pull children away from television, video games, computers and personal devices. Patricia Greenfield, an American neuropsychologist, studied the impact of technology on learning in 2009. Her study showed that whilst generation Y's love of technology, including television, video games and the internet, is developing impressive visual intelligence, that this is having severe effects on their ability to process information at a deep level. The ability to analyse and reflect is not being developed. As visual intelligence increases, the ability of the young generations to absorb and understand the written word is unfortunately decreasing. In order to develop the skills to reflect and critically think, human minds require sufficient time for reading.

There is something magical about books. Many people often comment that after seeing a film based on a book that it was never as good as what they had imagined whilst reading. Books allow you to get lost in the words and imagine things how you would like them to be. The use of your imagination is an important part of brain development.

In Wagga Wagga, the city's wonderful library is accessible to all residents not only for borrowing books but also for DVDs and magazines, as well as being a welcoming space where people can go in and have a coffee whilst reading their daily newspapers, accessing the free internet or wi-fi services, attending a holiday program or meeting up with friends. The library also runs a thriving book club community, with 55 book clubs, each with 10 members, who meet on a monthly basis and provide feedback. The book club has been a great way for them to meet new people.

The Wagga Wagga City Library runs a number of services to encourage people to read and to make it fun. These services include but are not limited to Storytime held four times a week, with about 200 children attending each week; Baby Bounce, where babies under 12 months of age start on a path to literacy with this learning program using rhyme and song; literacy collections to meet the needs of a growing new migrant community; and the Riverina Regional Mobile Library, which travels throughout the region as well as in the suburbs of Wagga Wagga, ensuring that the library is more accessible to residents than ever before. Reading is a vital part of the everyday, and it is important that we lift our literacy rate by encouraging more people to learn to read and with the fact that they should be able to enjoy it.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be able to join with my colleagues to speak to this motion in this, the National Year of Reading.

The National Year of Reading is a fantastic initiative, conceived and promoted by public libraries right around Australia and supported by a range of sponsors including the Commonwealth and state governments. The campaign, which includes programs and events in libraries and other venues in cities and towns throughout Australia, aims to turn Australia into a reading nation. It wants to inspire all of us to discover books if we have not already, and for keen readers to find new ways of connecting with the written word.

A big focus is naturally on children learning to read and being introduced to a lifelong relationship with books and reading. That is why the Year of Reading has as one of its goals to encourage families to share books with their children every day.

Of course, when we talk about reading it brings us to the important question of literacy, which is very much the focus of this motion as well. I was shocked to see the statistics quoted on the National Year of Reading's official website, and it is a statistic that is cited in Mr Adams's motion, showing that nearly half of our population—46 per cent—cannot read with fluency. That means that far too many people are unable to make the most of what this great country has to offer in the way of career prospects and lifestyle. It is why this government has made literacy is such a priority and a key focus of our education policies.

We have worked with state governments and education providers to identify those schools where students need extra assistance to develop the literacy skills they need if they are to progress through the curriculum. We have invested $540 million in those schools in the last four years, to give the schools identified as having those issues the resources they need to achieve improvements in literacy and also in numeracy. Eleven of those schools are in my electorate, and I know that the principals and teachers at those national partnership schools have appreciated the recognition that they need that extra support. They can see the results in their classrooms.

I spoke this morning with deputy principals at both Mount Archer State School and Allenstown State School in my city of Rockhampton. They described some of the initiatives that they have been able to put in place with the help of that additional funding. Both of those schools now have a literacy coach, and the literacy coaches are working and mentoring teachers within the schools to better analyse the data for where students are finding problems and also looking at how they can move those children forward with their reading skills. They are also working with parents to help address some of the problems that children are having. The important thing is that they are really seeing results. They talked about seeing results both in specific testing that happens in years 3, 5 and 7 and right across grades. So it is great to see where that funding is really having an effect in those schools. That is what the national partnership program is all about.

The other thing that teachers, parents and students can see in their schools is the massive investment in new facilities thanks to the Building the Education Revolution program and the transformation of schools that has been made possible by that funding. It is not just making a difference in the way our schools look; it is opening up possibilities for enhanced learning and engaging with students in so many new ways. You just have to talk to school librarians about the way that students have responded to the new resource centres in their primary schools to know that the goals of the National Year of Reading have received a very big boost thanks to the BER. The resource centres I have seen have become the hubs of each school and places students want to be, and they are places where students are surrounded by books, information and ideas.

Like all members on this side of the House, I have now been to dozens of schools to celebrate the opening of their new facilities. No two projects are the same, and every school has thought deeply about how to maximise the benefits of the BER funding for its students both now and into the future. Altogether there are 302 projects at 88 schools in Capricornia, including 60 libraries. Many schools received library upgrades as well as new multipurpose centres. That is a massive investment in jobs in the immediate term and an unprecedented investment in school facilities and the future of our children. All schools in Capricornia have done positive and worthwhile things with their BER money, and I want to congratulate them on the way they have used the money to really make a statement that those schools want to take their students to a whole new level of educational achievement.

In conclusion, I support my colleagues in this very important motion.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nearly half of the Australian population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. It is a sad and very concerning fact that 46 per cent of Australians cannot read a newspaper, follow a recipe, understand a bus timetable or comprehend the instructions on a medicine bottle. The National Year of Reading is all about turning Australians into a proud nation of readers. It is about students learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It is about supporting reading initiatives and it is about helping people discover and rediscover the magic of books. By the end of this year and into the future, the National Year of Reading hopes to achieve its aims for all Australians to understand the benefits of reading as life skills and catalysts for wellbeing, to promote a reading culture in everyone's homes and to establish an aspirational goal for families, parents and caregivers to share books with their children every day.

There is a wealth of evidence to support the fact that children who are read aloud to on a regular basis when they are young are readily able to learn to read once they start school. Reading opens up a world of educational opportunities for our students, providing the foundation for learning for the rest of their lives.

Every year, Brisbane City Council libraries help children in the electorate of Ryan and the wider Brisbane area to discover the joys of reading through its Gold Star Reading Club program. The Gold Star Reading Club is designed to encourage and develop reading and literacy skills for children. The program is run for four months of the year, beginning this year on 12 May and continuing until 31 August. Membership of the club is free. Children only need to be a member of their local library. Participants are challenged to read two books per month and record them in their activity book as they go along, with prizes and book vouchers awarded when they pass different milestones. At the end of the program each child is presented with a gold star medallion and a certificate to recognise their achievement at a local awards ceremony. Last year, the program attracted a record number of participants, with 6,479 children taking part. Among the participants were more than 500 primary school students from Brisbane's north-western suburbs in my electorate of Ryan. I would encourage every primary school in the Ryan electorate to become involved in this fantastic literacy program.

Earlier this month, Queensland Premier Campbell Newman and education minister John-Paul Langbroek launched the 2012 Premier's Reading Challenge in a bid to encourage more Queensland primary students to open a book. Last year more than 78,000 students completed the challenge and read more than one million books. It is a great chance for students, parents and teachers to share a commitment to reading more in schools and at home. The challenge is for every state and non-state school student from prep to year 2 to read or experience 20 books, years 3 and 4 to read 20 books, and years 5 to 7 to read 15 books between 22 May and 7 September. In this, the National Year of Reading, I would ask every school student in Ryan to consider taking up the Premier's Reading Challenge.

The complexity of today's world means that everyone needs to have some level of proficiency in reading in order to understand important public issues and to fully participate in society. Strong literacy skills are closely linked to the probability of having a successful career, a good salary, and access to training opportunities. A highly literate population can boost a country's economic performance as well as better equip citizens to address any social challenges they may face by being able to participate in informed public and governance debates.

I commend the organisations, supporters and the local libraries in the Ryan electorate who are involved in this, the National Year of Reading. This is an important nationwide initiative in which I hope all Australians will participate in their own way.

Debate adjourned.