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Aus: 'More than half of Year One students fail literacy test'

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:20 pm
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
Worrying findings using a Year One Phonics Check are revealed in The Daily Mail:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... -word.html
More than half of Year One students fail literacy test and many cannot even read a single word

More than half of Year One students tested have flunked a basic reading test
The test expected children to be able to detect real words from fake examples
In total more than 14,000 students 432 schools took part across South Australia
But only 43 per cent of children reached the expected level of understanding

Re: Aus: 'More than half of Year One students fail literacy test'

Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2019 8:50 pm
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
In response to these findings, popular teacher-blogger, Greg Ashman, wrote on Twitter:
We are often told that there is no need for a phonics check because schools are already teaching phonics. Not so.
Let's hope the widescale use of a Year One phonics check will give teachers and others in Australia a much-needed wake-up call.

Now we need other mainly English-speaking countries to adopt a similar check.

Re: Aus: 'More than half of Year One students fail literacy test'

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:13 am
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
Here is a published response from the same news featured in the Adelaide Advertiser:
Phonic revival

The failure of many Year 1 students to read at least 28 words from a list of 40 does not surprise me.

Years ago our son would have been among them.

He still could not read when he was in Year 2 but his teachers were not unduly concerned saying he would eventually pick it up.

He didn't.

So my husband sat with him for 10 minutes each evening, patiently teaching him the letter sounds and how to blend them. This method is known as "phonics" - the way we had been taught before "whole language" ("remember or guess") took over in the 1970s.

Our son then learned to read, and the first books without pictures that he actually enjoyed were by Enid Blyton.

Our local library refused to stock them so I searched second hand bookshops and op shops.

Years later our son achieved a PhD.

I congratulate the state government for its efforts to retrain teachers to teach phonics instead of whole language from the first year of schooling.

ROSLYN PHILLIPS

Tea Tree Gully

Re: Aus: 'More than half of Year One students fail literacy test'

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:32 am
by Debbie_Hepplewhite
You can compare the Australian results (South Australia) with England's 2018 results:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1117
Overall more than four in five pupils (82%) met the expected standard in the phonics screening check this year, a one percentage point increase on 2017 results.