Mandated top-down educational policies continue to dominate and shape pedagogic practices in Australian primary educational domains. The sustained increase in standardised approaches to the teaching and learning of early literacy have amplified concerns of many researchers and primary school teachers. Particular concerns have arisen about the harmful effects of learning and assessment regimes that promote narrow conceptualisations of literacy, especially for children from low socio-economic and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities. This chapter examines these concerns by reflecting on the experiences of one early years learner, Grace. Drawing on her experiences of being placed in a low ability group, it examines the ways in which children’s identities as readers and writers have become constructed by and through literacy classroom routines, practice and behaviours as framed by neoliberal educational policy. It seeks to specifically problematise pedagogic inequalities that are experienced in the classroom by children from low socio-economic communities. Key insights are explored throughout in order to enhance socially just practices in literacy teaching and learning.