RNZ 5 November, 2024 John Gerritsen
Just months before the government introduces regular phonics testing in primary schools, a UK study claims similar tests in England made little difference to children’s reading achievement.
The Education Policy Institute said it found no evidence children’s reading improved as a result of the 2012 introduction of phonics screening checks during their first year of school.
It also found no improvements in children’s writing once pupil and school factors were taken into account.
It said most teachers wanted the checks scrapped or significantly changed.
The New Zealand government has been trialling a phonics check that from next year children would sit after six months and one year of schooling.
Education Ministry information indicated it would involve children attempting to read about 40 words, including some words that were made up, to test their ability to decode the sounds associated with different letters.
The EPI research said the percentage of children passing England’s phonics screening check in their first year at school rose from 59 percent in 2012 to 83 percent in 2018.
But it said that did not result in significant improvements in general reading ability in later years.
It said England’s results in an international reading test of Year 5 children, the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), improved only slightly after the introduction of the tests.
“Were the PSC to have intervened significantly as a lever for reading improvement, this might be reflected by a substantial rise in scores in 2016 and 2021, compared to previous years,” it said.
England’s PIRLS average scores improved from 552 points in 2011, the year before the tests were introduced, to 559 and 558 in 2016 and 2021 respectively.
During the same period the percentage of children agreeing a lot that they enjoyed reading fell from 66 to 54 percent for girls and from 49 to 44 percent for boys…
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