Category Archives: Articles

Reading Between the Lines

Recent comments from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, suggest that national testing might be about to return to Scotland. I do support our forward-thinking curriculum, but I also feel there are bits of it where we could do better. We cannot ignore the uncomfortable truth that, when it comes to literacy, we are in a worse place now than we were two years ago. Pointing the finger of blame at secondary teachers is not only entirely unfair, but it is missing the point. We are all teachers of literacy, but when children are unable to access the language and learning of their curriculum at secondary school, it is ludicrous to expect subject specialists to have the time – or knowledge – required to teach children how to read, write and spell properly.

‘Learning to read’ should be sorted out early on in primary; enabling children to go forward as confident readers who can then ‘read to learn’. We talk so much about the attainment gap, but fail to realise that it is manifested in low literacy levels. We need to ensure that all of our learners, but especially the most disadvantaged, are equipped with the necessary literacy skills to achieve success at primary school and beyond. Until we tackle the persistent underachievement in reading in primary school, the gap will not go away. It will grow, becoming a black hole at secondary level that swallows our least able learners as they try to compete in the uneven playing fields of our classrooms.

Is testing the answer? I’d argue that it would certainly help. I am not advocating a return to the 5-14 style of assessment, nor am I suggesting that we should implement high-stakes testing, such as the SATs, that cause such stress in England.  However, I do believe that we could adopt their Phonics Screening Check, which is a simple, light-touch assessment, administered by the class teacher in Primary 2.  This identifies children who are at risk of literacy failure by assessing their knowledge of the essential letter/sound correspondences, as well as the skill of being able to apply this knowledge through blending and reading words. Use of this test would also provide us with data and a benchmark to see how we are doing in those crucial early stages. Since the introduction of the screening check in England, the number of children passing it has been rising steadily. Last year 74% of Year 1(P2) pupils met the expected standard of phonic decoding, compared with 69% in 2013 and 58% in 2012. I like to think that if we introduced the same test here in Scotland, our children’s scores would compare favourably. However, given the recent SSLN results, I’m not brave enough to make a bet.

Anne Glennie is a literacy consultant and a founding member of IFERI (International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction)

As published in TES Scotland, Friday 12th June 2015, No.2423

For more information about IFERI and the Phonics Screening Check click here

Phonics: An International Perspective

Phonics is not just a national issue for us here in the UK. Supporting the optimum number of children to read the English language fluently and confidently is an international issue. Although I thought I already had a fair picture of what is happening overseas, since being involved as a member of IFERI I have been amazed at the synergy between our situation and that of so many other countries worldwide. The growing evidence and support internationally for phonics as the key to reading success is so strong. However many other countries also have almost exactly the same issues with ingrained but misinformed and, yes, prejudiced opposition. They too need so many more policy makers, head teachers, teachers and parents (perhaps especially parents) to start to question what they have been led to ‘believe’ about learning to read and start to pay due regard to the actual evidence, no only of research, but of the demonstrated classroom efficacy of high quality phonics practice. We are fortunate in this country that some key national policy makers understand what is needed to get all our children reading. This means that we are well ahead of many other countries in moving towards teaching based on the principle of using phonic decoding as the route to reading unknown words. There are many in other countries who are envious of our position and fully appreciate what is being done. That makes it all the more tragic that there are still large numbers of teaching professionals, and others, in our country who don’t. Please start to look regularly at the IFERI website and see the whole picture for yourself. Gordon Askew