Australian Curriculum v9.0 English Changes Explained

V9.0 English recognises that literacy in the 21st century is multimodal. Students need to understand and create meaning across written text, images, audio, video, and interactive media. This isn't a separate unit—it's embedded throughout the curriculum as students analyse how creators use text, visual elements, and sound together to communicate.

This shift acknowledges that students encounter and create multimodal texts constantly. A news article might include video, a podcast has transcript and background music, social media combines image and text. Teaching students to analyse and create across modes reflects real-world literacy demands.

V9.0 strengthens the phonics approach in early reading, building on evidence that explicit, systematic phonics combined with engagement with rich texts produces the strongest reading outcomes. The curriculum provides a clear progression from phonemic awareness through to fluent decoding.

Crucially, phonics is taught as a tool for decoding, not as reading itself. Students simultaneously engage with quality literature, develop comprehension strategies, and are exposed to diverse texts. This balanced approach—explicit phonics plus authentic reading experiences—aligns with what research shows works.

V9.0 structures writing development to gradually move from supported early writing through to independent composition. Rather than expecting all Year 1 students to write sentences independently, the curriculum acknowledges that writing develops through oral rehearsal, shared writing experiences, and guided practice before independent application.

The curriculum also explicitly teaches text types and organisational structures—how a recount differs from an explanation, how persuasive writing is structured. This genre knowledge, combined with explicit teaching of sentence construction and spelling patterns, builds writing capability.

Grammar and spelling are taught as tools to support writing, not as isolated skills. V9.0 introduces grammatical terms and concepts progressively, connecting them to authentic writing. For instance, students learn about nouns, verbs, and adjectives in the context of writing narratives, not through decontextualised grammar exercises.

Spelling follows a word study approach, where students examine patterns and morphology to understand how words work. Rather than random spelling lists, v9.0 encourages teaching spelling patterns, prefixes, suffixes, and roots in connected ways.

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V9.0 English Literacy Progressions

Year-by-year progression maps showing how reading, writing, and spoken language develop from Foundation through Year 6, with clear proficiency descriptors and assessment examples.

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V9.0 maintains the importance of quality literature throughout primary years. Students engage with diverse authors, cultural perspectives, and text types—building literary understanding whilst developing critical thinking about text, character, and author purpose.

The curriculum emphasises reading widely across genres and authors, with particular attention to First Nations literature, contemporary Australian writers, and texts that reflect the diversity of Australian society.