Molly noted:
Here is the piece:‘Australian Government Primary Principals Association president Michael Fay said tests of young children’s early reading skills should not be used for “simplistic external accountability” purposes.’
See https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/phonics- ... b88439552z
I wonder what is ‘simplistic’ about ensuring that all children have a solid foundation for learning to read?
Lorraine Hammond is not wrong when she notes the check will reduce the teachers' workload. The introduction of the check will no doubt raise the levels of teachers' awareness about the notion of teaching effectiveness - and the more knowledgeable and better equipped the teachers are to teach the alphabetic code and phonics skills, the easier their job will become at ensuring all children are literate.Phonics test opposed by Australian school principals
EXCLUSIVE, Bethany Hiatt, Education Editor
Sunday, 9 April 2017
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said the test would not be used to compare schools.
Primary school principals are ramping up their opposition to a proposed phonics screening test for Year 1 students, because they have “grave concerns” it would lead to unfair school comparisons.
The Federal Government is planning a trial of a nationwide phonics assessment, similar to a model used in British schools, to check if six-year-old pupils are picking up early reading skills.
The assessment would be in addition to NAPLAN testing in Year 3 and oral language exams that WA students do in pre-primary.
Australian Government Primary Principals Association president Michael Fay said tests of young children’s early reading skills should not be used for “simplistic external accountability” purposes.
“We have grave concerns that if this Year 1 phonics check was to come in that schools would be labelled in a similar way (to NAPLAN comparisons),” he said. “We don’t think this is constructive.” In a position paper released ahead of a visit to Australia this week by British Schools Minister Nick Gibb to promote the benefits of phonics screening, principals said they would resist any move to extend the national testing regime.
“Principals view the proposal as an ill-informed reaction to recent reports on Australian schooling that does not address the real issues about improving student outcomes in literacy and numeracy,” the statement said.
It said all States already had school-entry assessment tools in place to identify students needing more support, so a nationwide phonics assessment would be an “unnecessary duplication”.
Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham said though some data might be used to inform policymaking, the test would not be used to compare schools.
“We’re not suggesting that this is something that will lead to league tables, rankings, public scores being released for individual schools or anything that applies that type of pressure,” he said.“This is about providing the right tool for teachers for use in their classroom to help their children.”
Edith Cowan University senior education lecturer Lorraine Hammond said the phonics test could reduce teachers’ workloads by allowing the early identification of students at risk of reading failure.
She said it would help students decode words using their knowledge of letter-sound relationships, rather than guessing.
I can testify that the more literate all the children are, the more liberating this is for the rest of the curriculum wherever reading and writing is involved, the more the children will enjoy the wider curriculum and they will be more likely to enjoy reading and to read more widely - and so on. It can only be a win-win situation.