States and territories have received the preliminary results for this year's round of NAPLAN examinations.
Nationally, there has been a 3.5 per cent improvement in reading, and a 2.5 per cent improvement in numeracy since 2008.
But writing skills are down, dropping by just over two per cent since the test format changed in 2011.
Robert Randall, CEO of the Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, says overall there is a "sustained improvement" in important areas.
"We should be setting ourselves high expectations. We should never be satisfied that we're 'good enough'. Literacy and numeracy is too important for young people at school and beyond. So while we can celebrate some success in these results, we should be setting our sights higher. And we should be looking at areas like writing, and some of the secondary areas, to see where we can further improve."
Queensland and Western Australia have shown the most improvement in literacy and numeracy over the past decade.
ACT, Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania all achieved high results, but their results have levelled out.
South Australia is the worst-performing mainland state in 16 out of 20 categories.
The Northern Territory is the only state or territory to go backwards across all categories since last year.
Education Minister Simon Birmingham said the results were a "real concern".
"It's a mixed bag of NAPLAN results today. Our priority as a government now is to build on the reforms that we've already implemented: better teacher training in our universities, where we're guaranteeing that future graduates are going to be literate and numerate themselves, and in the top 30 per cent of Australians for their capabilities."
Labor MP Linda Burney believes changes to education funding, under the Coalition's so-called Gonski 2.0 plan, are stalling student development.
"Simon Birmingham has walked away from Gonski. He has walked away from needs-based funding. And he has abandoned what states and territories thought they were going to receive under the Gonski arrangements."
Correna Haythorpe from the Australian Education Union agrees.
"I don't think there are too many surprises here. There is a direct link in terms of funding for our schools and the outcomes that students will achieve. And what we've seen is less one third of the original Gonski dollars actually go into our schools, so that has an impact on things such as NAPLAN testing."
But Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has defended his Government's $24 billion education package.
"No-one can say we're not spending enough money. No-one can say we're not putting substantial resources into it. We've got to get the *educational bang for the taxpayer's buck."
While the test scores do add to student stress, schools say they're trying to reduce the pressure faced by students.
The Principal of Sydney's St Andrews Cathedral School, Dr John Collier, says he wants his students - and staff - to realise that NAPLAN is just another life hurdle.
"School value, educational excellence, is a lot more than simply NAPLAN test results. They're useful, but they're limited. It's too limited a test, and it can't carry that weight of comparison between schools, which I think lacks validity."
The final NAPLAN results are released in December.
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