Books reflecting remote Indigenous lifestyles and culture 'key' to students' reading success
Remote Indigenous students have lower levels of reading achievement, according to 2025 NAPLAN data. (Supplied)
In short:
NAPLAN results have showed the reading ability of Indigenous students in remote areas is significantly lower than their non-Indigenous counterparts.
Remote Indigenous students often speak English as a fourth or fifth language and have more difficulty accessing education.
What's next?
Educators say books that reflect the lifestyles and cultures of remote Indigenous communities could engage students in reading and improve outcomes.
Ten-year-old Brynetta Lewis's favourite book is about an ant and snail that eat lunch together.
"It's funny because the snail is eating fish and chips," said the year 5 student at the Warakurna Campus Ngaanyatjarra Lands School in remote Western Australia, near the Northern Territory border.
The story was one of 11 books Brynetta had finished for a school reading challenge.
Brynetta Lewis says reading is "easy". (Supplied)
While her first language is Ngaanyatjarra, Brynetta said it was "easy" to read the books in English.
But this year's NAPLAN results show for many Indigenous students, especially those in very remote areas, reading is not easy.
Big gap in reading levels
According to the results, about three-quarters (72.5 per cent) of Indigenous year 5 students in very remote areas of Australia were marked as needing additional support for reading compared to 13.2 per cent of their non-Indigenous counterparts.
The data showed the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students' reading abilities exists across year levels, with reading proficiency declining as remoteness increases.
Charles Darwin University coordinator of First Nations educational leadership Haydon Staines said English was often a fourth or fifth language for remote Indigenous students, which made learning to read more difficult.
He said remote students also had more challenges when it came to accessing education itself.
"Depending on where the school's at with resourcing, staffing, adequate programs, often students can get left behind or come in and out of that space and that can be really challenging,"he said.
Mr Staines, a Warlpiri, Luritja and Jungala man, said some assessment reading questions presented concepts or content completely outside of an Aboriginal context.
"We're talking about things like catching trams, which I've personally come across in some of the NAPLAN assessments; these are concepts that are very foreign [to remote Indigenous students]," he said.
"Of course Aboriginal students aren't going to perform well in those assessments."
Books part of the solution
Mr Staines said texts that reflected remote Indigenous cultures and lifestyles were "the key to success" in improving reading outcomes for Indigenous students.
"What really good readers have is a love for reading; what better way to create and foster a love for reading than to have texts that are interconnected, that are relatable, that are relevant and that are meaningful to you as an Indigenous student," he said.
Brendan Lewis says it is important for students to see themselves in what they are reading. (Supplied)
Brynetta's teacher Brendan Lewis said the 30 or so students at the Warakurna Campus Ngaanyatjarra Lands School, located 4 hours west of Uluru, were more engaged with reading materials when they could see themselves reflected in the text, even if the words were in a different language.
"If students don't see themselves in the media they're consuming, they'll disengage and then there won't be the opportunity for learning," he said.
"If they're engaged they're more inclined to push themselves when they come [across] … tricky words or tricky punctuation or different sort of structures of words that they're not familiar with."
Warakurna Campus principal Erin Brown said the school was lucky to have culturally responsive texts to teach children how to read, but there was always space for more culturally appropriate reading material.
"We can get a lot of books from Aboriginal authors, Aboriginal illustrators from all over the country, but in terms of decodable books and readers, that progressively increase in difficulty, it is limited," she said.
Mr Lewis, who is not related to Brynetta, said the support of local Yarnangu people also played an important role in remote Indigenous education.
"Every time that I have Yarnangu teachers in my classroom the students are more engaged and are just more enthusiastic about their learning," he said.
Books that children can relate to help foster a love of reading, Haydon Staines says. (Supplied: Wayne Quilliam)
Reading important skill
Mr Staines said reading was a vital skill for students to master, and Mr Lewis agreed.
"There's the practical application or uses for reading, but there's the creative practices about learning about new stories, finding emotion in different characters," he said.
"And I think if you're able to read, well, then you'll never be lonely, because you can always buy a book or get given a book and have some company."
Brynetta said she was "proud" and "excited" to complete the reading challenge and she was looking forward to reading more in the future.
"I'm a quick reader," she said.
Mr Lewis too was pleased to see his students' results.
"The students have already progressed so much in the small amount of time we've implemented the reading challenge, so we can't wait to see what they achieve in the future," he said.