Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

This is really great news regarding further trialling of a phonics check - this time in New South Wales. Hopefully, every region in Australia will soon get on board - we need a 'tipping point' - and then perhaps other English-speaking countries will adopt national phonics screening too:
YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST

by Anna Caldwell
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/ ... f7e81a6a1c
NSW public school children in grade one will face a statewide phonics screening test under a trial funded in Tuesday’s state Budget.

Schools will have the choice to opt in to the standardised testing of their youngest students on their understanding of linking letters to sounds.

The results will put teachers and students under the microscope, and will identify schools and pupils who need to put greater effort into learning to read and offer them help.

Standardised phonics testing has been the subject of dispute, with Queensland’s then education minister in 2017 saying the tests were an unnecessary impost on children, and the Australian Education Union said they undermined the judgment of teachers.

However, NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet has backed the tests, telling The Daily Telegraph “research shows children who understand the relationship between letters and sounds — known as ‘phonics’ — will be better placed to succeed as readers”.

“This trial will not only be hugely beneficial in making sure students’ reading skills progress well, it will also be a helpful tool for teachers to quickly identify children who do not yet have a good knowledge of phonics, and plan for any specific support they need,” Mr Perrottet said.

The phonics screening check was developed in the UK and was trialled in 56 schools in South Australia in 2017 before being rolled out statewide.

The test is a short one-on-one assessment between a teacher and child that takes about five to seven minutes. It will be conducted towards the end of grade one.

Literacy expert Dr Jennifer Bucking-ham, a staunch supporter of the tests, said there was no certainty about how well phonics was being taught in NSW.
“That’s why a phonics check is so important … it will give us a better understanding of how well students are learning phonics by the end of their second year in school,” Dr Buckingham said.

“So any support that children might need in that area can be addressed before they get too far into their schooling.”

The phonics check-up will be available to every state school in term three of 2020 and each can elect to opt in to the program. The test will not be compulsory. The project is part of a record education spend in tomorrow’s Budget, and aims to increase the standard of reading for NSW children.

Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning Sarah Mitchell said the phonics test was simple to conduct “and a wonderful resource for improving performance”.

Non-government schools will also be eligible to participate in the trial if they conducted the Best Start Kindergarten assessment in 2019 or 2020.
Again we see the incredible pioneer in Australia, Dr Jennifer Buckingham, quoted in the article. Jennifer is a member of IFERI's Advisory Group.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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Phonics tests for primary school students to be funded in NSW state budget

Sarah Wiedersehn
https://7news.com.au/news/education/pho ... t-c-170243
NSW public school students in grade one will have the option of sitting a phonics test from next year under an education trial to be funded in Tuesday's state budget.
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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And to be expected, here come the critics and underminers - people who simply don't understand the importance of phonics provision and the need to understand how well the infant teachers teach beginners to read:
Teachers told to ignore 'NAPLAN-style' phonics test for six-year-olds

By Pallavi Singhal
https://www.smh.com.au/education/naplan ... 51yio.html
Teachers are being told to ignore a new opt-in phonics test for year 1 students and parents have raised concerns that it could become a "high-stakes NAPLAN-style test for six-year-olds".

"We're telling teachers to ignore the politicians who have no expertise in this area and stick to the syllabuses that have been written by professional educators and include a range of sophisticated reading strategies," said Maurie Mulheron, president of the NSW Teachers' Federation, which represents 60,000 educators across the state.

The optional state-wide phonics trial test was announced by the NSW government on Monday and will be based on similar checks that have been implemented in South Australia and England.

Phonics is a reading strategy based on linking sounds with letters, and a year 1 check based on England's test was recommended by an advisory panel established by former federal education minister Simon Birmingham in 2017.
SA and NSW have so far been the only states to implement the recommendation in government schools.

Catholic schools in Queensland trialled the checks last year, while the NSW Catholic Education Commission said it has checks in place to identify which students need more support and rejected the "one-size-fits-all" approach when the panel's recommendations were released.

Senior research fellow at literacy education provider MultiLit Jennifer Buckingham, who chaired the advisory panel, welcomed the new, saying the check would be "so different to NAPLAN" because teachers will get results immediately.

"It's a great way of getting an overall measure of how well children have learnt to decode by the end of their second year of school and it's early enough that teachers will have time to intervene," she said.

"It's true that schools do a lot of assessments and this is a trial to find out if this particular assessment helps teachers.

"It's a curriculum-based assessment rather than a standardised test. I think it's important that data is collected centrally but not published, so schools can get support if they need it."
However, a number of elements of the check have proven controversial, including the test's exclusive focus on phonics over other reading strategies, the inclusion of "nonsense" words such as 'plood' and 'pove' to check that students are decoding rather than sight-reading, and the introduction of a test for younger students.

"We are concerned that a year 1 phonics test could become a high-stakes NAPLAN-style test for six-year-olds, and we don’t need to subject children to more stress from even younger ages," a NSW P&C spokesman said.

"We are also concerned the results of phonics tests will be used to produce what are essentially league tables, as has been the case with NAPLAN results, which would not be beneficial."

Paul Gardner, a senior lecturer in literacy at Curtin University and the UK Literacy Association ambassador to Australia, said reviews of England's phonics check have found limited evidence of its usefulness in improving reading or teaching of reading, but that teachers are now focusing on phonics at the expense of other reading strategies.

"Once you implement a test and you report on it what tends to happen is that schools invariably teach to the test and greater curriculum time is spent on getting students to pass it," he said.

"The problem with the phonics test that it only interrogates one tiny aspect of reading, so it's assessing students' ability to use particular strategy for decoding rather than actually assessing reading."

Dr Gardner said much of the research found it is successful among some groups who have special reading needs but in most cases needs to combined with a "whole string of strategies".
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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"We are concerned that a year 1 phonics test could become a high-stakes NAPLAN-style test for six-year-olds, and we don’t need to subject children to more stress from even younger ages," a NSW P&C spokesman said.
Responses to the point above via Twitter:
The Phonics Check is nothing like NAPLAN and is not a standardised test. If the NSWTF can’t tell the difference, it’s a poor reflection on their understanding of reading assessment.
All this talk of stressing out kids seems so misplaced. Surely it’s much more stressful to not learn to read effectively?
It’s just ridiculous. The phonics check takes a few minutes per child. I have NOT seen 1 child stressed out by this. Way more stressful to do a running record and way more time consuming
I wonder whether those lamenting the “high-stakes” phonics checks for Year 1s, kids have spoken to any teachers in SA? Or read the detailed report from the SA trial?
This “test” is a one-on-one sit down with the teacher to check a student’s ability to decode 40 short words and sound combos. School results are not publicly reported, or ranked, but rather used to inform whether their teaching methods are effective. It should not be “stressful”.
Absolutely. As a teacher, I regularly use assessment for learning in my practice. It helps me to determine the next steps for my students in their learning and my teaching. I struggle with the fuss that some are trying to complicate the check with.
Those lamenting “high-stakes” need to think about the students. The stakes are impossibly high for those students who don’t learn to read. (poorer health & employment outcomes, higher chance of incarceration & more). #DontLeaveReadingToChance #phonicscheck
This is SO disappointing!! Many teachers, educators & academics support the introduction of the Phonics Check because it will identify students with reading difficulties early, so they may receive evidence-based reading instruction
What an absurd criticism. It's nothing like NAPLAN: results won't be public, and only a very quick check involving the teacher with individual students. Also, the positive South Australian experience clearly proves the naysayers are wrong.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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Perrattet unapologetic: 'We are not here for the Teachers' Federation'
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/per ... 51yto.html
Mr Perrottet is unapologetic. 'Why should state governments not look at better ways of doing things? We are not here for the Teachers' Federation,' he said.

Education is rife with ideological battles. The reading wars. The funding wars. Direct Instruction versus more avant-guards approaches. In education, NSW Teachers' Federation sits at one end of that spectrum, opposing NAPLAN and the phonics check.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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Professor Kevin Wheldall (a founding member of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction) steps in to explain via The Sydney Morning Herald:
'When two tribes go to war': - the reading debate explained
https://www.smh.com.au/education/when-t ... 51z6d.html
Two Tribes was a song written by British band Frankie Goes to Hollywood in the early 1980s during a particularly tense period of the Cold War when many of us feared for the lives of our children.

Today, two different tribes battle it out in the so-called ‘reading wars’ and again our main fear is for the fate of our children. Last week, debate was re-ignited after the NSW government announced a trial of the year 1 phonics check. So, who are the two tribes in the reading wars and how do they differ?

In the first tribe stand those aligned with the findings of cognitive science research on reading and related skills; psychologists, speech pathologists, and special educators, in the main. They focus on teaching students the sound combinations, or 'code' upon which words are built; the different sounds made by 'oo' or 'ow', for example.

The second tribe comprises mainly regular educators; teachers and educationists in schools, state and federal education departments and (perhaps especially) academics in university teacher education departments.
Do read the whole piece, it's not long!
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Re: Aus NSW: 'YOUNGSTERS ARE BEING SOUNDED OUT ABOUT NEW TEST'

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Here is a post about academics, internationally, who undermine systematic synthetic phonics provision and the move to introduce national or regional phonics screening checks:
The Reading Ape
https://www.thereadingape.com/single-po ... ial-people

So hands up, who hates phonics? Some very influential people...

April 17, 2019


Systematic phonics instruction has been described as the nearest thing to a silver bullet for the development of literacy. With all the economic and social ills associated with illiteracy (detailed here), it would be a brave person who would deny the weight of research in its favour. There remains considerable resistance to this form of instruction from the teaching profession (detailed here) but also a number of high-profile international academics. The prospect of a Phonics Screening Check in Australia has enraged them. Their views are analysed in this post.
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