More than one in five Australian children are not reaching key developmental milestones when they start school. Left alone, those early gaps do not close on their own, they compound, year after year, until they become very hard to undo.
The compounding problem
A child who starts behind in reading reads less, which widens the gap, which makes reading harder still. Teachers call it the Matthew effect: the rich get richer. By the time a struggling student reaches the upper primary years, the intervention needed is far larger than it would have been in Prep or Year 1.
The evidence on catching up
Here is the hopeful part. The research is clear that with the right early intervention, these students catch up. That means having real programs in place in every school: remedial literacy and numeracy support, early screening so problems are spotted quickly, and access to specialist allied-health support such as speech and occupational therapists.
It also means giving teachers good, timely data. When a teacher can see in close to real time that a particular student has not mastered a concept, they can act before a small gap becomes a chasm. Adaptive and diagnostic assessment, used well, lets teaching be targeted to exactly what each child needs to learn next.
A question of will, not knowledge
We already know what works. The barrier is making sure every school, not just the well-resourced ones, can afford to put these programs in place. That is precisely the case for needs-based funding: get the support to the children who need it most, as early as possible, and far fewer of them will be left behind.