Alarming statistics suggest that half a million children will be left behind in reading by 2020 if they aren't encouraged to read more.
Parenting on Female First
Everybody Learns, a Literacy Skills Company established to help parents improve their child’s reading and writing skills, is calling for greater awareness of the differences in levels of reading skills amongst the UK’s children aged 4-7 years old.
The public’s focus is often drawn to poor levels of literacy at GCSE level, however, there is a cogent argument stating that more needs to be done to establish good practice and teaching methods at a younger age than is currently the case.
This was surmised by John Criddle, the CBI’s director-general, at the launch of the organisation’s First Steps campaign who said: “the high percentage of young people failing to achieve at 16 and 18 is merely one end of a long conveyor belt that has tolerated low performance”.
The inherent problem in the current teaching of reading is that this conveyer belt system means that class teaching is generally aimed at children of average ability, and assessment to measure individual progress is not sufficiently rigorous. This leads to many stronger pupils not reaching their full potential and weaker students being left behind. As the current system “does not deal with individual needs”, professionals are noticing “gaps of up to a year in attainment are already observable by the time children are five, and they widen through the primary years”.
The current government recommended teaching practice within the UK is to use a phonics based system as the cornerstone for the development of reading skills. All children in Year 1, except those in private schools, are required to complete the ‘Phonics Screening Check’ at the end of the academic year to assess their decoding ability.
The objective of the check is to identify children who need extra help so they can be given support to improve their reading skills.
In 2013 the government commissioned an evaluation of the Year 1 phonics check to determine its impact and found: “Year 1 teachers had mixed views on whether the standard of the check was appropriate” and that “the check would have minimal, if any, impact on the standard of reading and writing in their school in the future”.
However, Everybody Learns, believes that the check brings formality and regularity to measuring children’s phonics skills, ensuring that schools measure this in a consistent way, but its results are only relevant if a suitable remedial plan of action is then implemented. Only 58% of children passed the phonics test in 2012 and 69% in 2013, this translates as one third of children not achieving the expected reading level for their age.
The irrefutable truth of the matter is that early assessment is necessary to identify children’s individual abilities and areas where they need help. Ideally assessment should be in place at the beginning of Year 1, and should be ongoing, so that children can be taught according to their differing skill levels. The highest performing schools already do this and probably do not need the formality of the Year 1 phonics check. For other schools, however, it ensures that a structured assessment takes place.
Charmaine Fletcher, General Manager at Everybody Learns commented: “Good education is the basis for every child’s future success and the ability to read well is key. Since parents are a child’s first teachers they should naturally develop their child’s early language skills, but many of our children do not start school with this advantage. Our position is that educational providers, alongside parents and guardians, need to do more to encourage phonics based learning and assess reading abilities earlier in a child’s life, to increase the number of children who pass the phonics test at the end of Year One.”