Category Archives: Assessment

Why we use the Phonics Screening Check in Australia

Students at the school at which I work learn to decode systematically and explicitly. We believe that, given the balance of evidence, a good grounding in phonics, taught systematically, will provide them with the best opportunity to improve their reading comprehension. A key part of our teaching strategy is using assessment evidence to pinpoint what a student can decode and what they still need to work on.

As an Australian school we don’t have access to an Australian national or state-wide assessment for decoding skills or early reading comprehension. In the absence of such an assessment we have decided to use the UK Phonics Screening Check to help inform our instruction. We use the Phonics Screening Check because:

It provides a standard

One of the most common questions students, staff and parents have is whether a child is “doing ok” – are they at the standard for their age? The Phonics Screening Check gives us a standard that we can measure between year levels and across years. We know that students are at standard for their age when they can pass the Phonics Screening Check. It gives a definitive anchor for our work and helps guide what we do. Instead of having an individual feel for what an appropriate level of decoding might be, we have an agreed standard. This aids conversation: we all know exactly what it means to say a student is above or below that standard and we know what instruction and learning is required to get them there. We are able to detect much earlier when a student is in danger of not making the required level and can intervene earlier and with more of a sense of what is required.

Another feature of the earlier Screening Checks that is useful is the published item difficulties for each of the words and non-words in the 2012 and 2013 pilots. This gives a good indication of what words or non-words were more difficult than others for the UK students. We can then compare that to how difficult our students found those items and investigate when differences arise. What items are we comparatively strong at? Are there aspects of our instruction around the use of that grapheme that we need to record and make sure we are all include in our practice?

There may be other words/non-words our students unexpectedly find difficult to decode. Why can’t our students decode the word? What part of the word is proving to be the stumbling block? What do we currently do to teach the decoding of that grapheme and why is not working? What parts of our instruction need to be revised in order for students to improve?

It builds a bridge between classrooms

In our school the Prep (5 year old) classes are fluid – the groups are altered every six weeks and teachers change between classes. This results in a shared responsibility for the progress of all students in Prep. Fantastic conversations are had between teachers as they realise that kids who have been in one class are much better at something than students who have been in another class. It might be as simple as noticing children from class A always construct sentences with a capital letter at the start and a full stop at the end, something that doesn’t happen in class B. What is happening in this class that allows students to do this consistently and how can I teach my kids to do the same?

Sometimes, though, the differences in student learning between classes are not so obvious and it takes a specific assessment to reveal them. On the UK Phonics Screening Check there are times when students who are notionally in an earlier phase of their phonics work that have greater success in decoding a non-word than a class that should have done better. Why did that happen? What instruction around that grapheme phoneme correspondence in that class was so effective and how is best implemented in the other classes? How can we learn from each other in order to improve the instruction for all students?

The sharing of demonstrably effective practice results in teaching that is more successful. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all classes are exactly the same but it does allow the gap in effectiveness of instruction to be decreased. This is an equity issue: a student’s progress should not be based on a lottery depending on whether or not they get an effective teacher when classes are allocated. When the instructional quality of the team is growing, both as a whole and as individuals, all students benefit.

The Phonics Screening Check is an important component of the process of instructional improvement and allows a sense of what an appropriate level of decoding looks like. As such, I would heartily recommend it to all schools teaching phonics.

IFERI would like to thank Reid Smith, who is a teacher in Australia, for allowing us to re-blog this post. You can subscribe to his blog here:

https://notquitetabularasa.wordpress.com/

And you’ll find him on Twitter here: @Smithre5

IFERI supports and promotes the use of the Phonics Screening Check internationally. It is a free, easy to use, light-touch assessment. For more information, or to download the check, click here.

The Adoption and Spread of Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) in Latin America

The Adoption and Spread of Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) in Latin America: Argentina and Chile mainly, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru and Mexico

by Grace Vilar

In 2011, I became an independent, full-time Literacy and Phonics Trainer, and Educational and Literacy Consultant, in Latin America. I started providing training events, however, in 2007 whilst I was still working as Head of English Primary at Colegio San Antonio in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I am the main phonics consultant and trainer developing Systematic Synthetic Phonics (SSP) provision in Latin America. I am not a researcher, however, and I describe my findings based on my experience as teacher, head teacher and teacher-trainer.

Whilst visiting primary schools during a trip to Oxford, England, in September 2006, I discovered systematic synthetic phonics teaching. I was immediately aware that synthetic phonics was the solution to our problems in Latin American schools, as synthetic phonics provides a very easy and effective method to teach our bilingual Spanish/English children how to read and write.

Originally when I was teaching, I had to base my teaching on the whole word and whole language approach. I attended many teacher-training courses and was very much supported by my school and head teacher at that time. With much effort, my pupils did learn – however, I was never very happy with the whole language approach and used ‘decoding’ and ‘encoding’ to support the ‘mixed methods’. In reality I was getting frustrated year after year with mixed methods. In time, I became a head teacher myself, and continued to be very uncomfortable with the prevailing mixed methods. A ‘multi-cueing reading strategies’ approach was also used for struggling readers, and still children were not reading well, and writing… had worsened!

The problem was that our children were using their experience of the ‘transparent’ Spanish alphabetic code to read and write in English resulting in very inaccurate pronunciation and spelling. So once they started to learn the details of the ‘opaque’ (complex) English alphabetic code, together with the core phonics skills of blending (for reading), segmenting (for spelling) and handwriting with the English code rather than the Spanish code, they rapidly started to master the pronunciation and spelling of English with the accuracy I had been seeking. The children soon showed greater confidence in reading and writing and their language and reading comprehension in English grew stronger every day. With knowledge of the English alphabetic code, even the children with special educational needs became successful – such as those with short-term memory, and dyslexic tendencies.

Following my very positive findings of applying synthetic phonics in my own bilingual school, I started to share my experience with other schools – first in Argentina and then in Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Mexico and Brazil. All of these countries learn English as a new foreign language as Spanish is their mother tongue (and Portuguese in the case of Brazil).

Year after year more schools in Latin America are using the Systematic Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles as their main and only method for teaching reading and writing in English, and a few of them have even started to use England’s statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year One to get an idea of how they are doing compared to schools in England. In Latin America, however, ‘Year One’ is only the first year of formal, structured phonics provision whereas in England’s schools, formal structured phonics provision starts in Reception so children in England have had two years of synthetic phonics by the time they undertake the Year One Phonics Screening Check. Early signs are that the Latin American schools are getting wonderful results, some at least getting better results than the average results of schools in England!

Further information about Latin America, Spanish-speaking countries

Argentina is the pioneering country for adoption of Systematic Synthetic Phonics. Most of the private schools in Argentina teach English for 8 to 15 hours a week. The level of teaching and teachers’ professionalism is very high in general. Chile and Uruguay follow in terms of adoption of synthetic phonics. These two countries in particular look to England as a guide for updating and perfecting their teaching of English. They take the Cambridge international examinations (IGCSE, A and AS levels, and IB programmes). Even state schools in the city of Buenos Aires have adopted some IB subjects for their secondary schools.

State schools in Argentina also teach English as a foreign language for 3 to 5 hours a week, starting from Primary 1 (5 to 6 year olds) or from Preschool (4 to 5 year olds). Others start in Year 4 (8 to 9 year olds) or they may start in secondary schools.

In the province of San Luis, Argentina, in 2013 the Department for Education launched a bilingual and multilingual project in three schools where English is taught two and a half hours daily following an immersion programme such as the ones used in the private schools in the country. These three schools offer Trinity examinations.

In Mexico, English is taught in all of the 32 states from Preschool (5 year olds) for 2 to 3 hours a week. The first state to adopt a Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme (Jolly Phonics) officially is Aguascalientes where I trained 300 teachers.

As I said before, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile are leading countries and they refer mainly to England’s education, so they adopt all the latest teaching practices and methods. When new methodologies appear, all schools send their staff to be trained and organisations such as the ESSARP centre based in Buenos Aires offer a wide range of courses which now include Systematic Synthetic Phonics courses.  (ABSCH in Chile delivers an annual conference.)

Click here to see an example of SSP course content

I devote my whole professional time now to training teachers around Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Mexico and online in Peru – and little by little interest is also growing in Brazil, where I sometimes have to speak in the Portuguese language to train the teachers in the state schools!

Countries that have adopted the Systematic Synthetic Phonics Teaching Principles as their main method to teach how to read and write in English as a foreign language:

Countries Private state
Argentina 70 % approx. San Luis province: 100% City of Buenos Aires: 20%
Mexico 2 % approx. State of Aguascalientes: 100%
Chile 35 % approx
Uruguay 40 % approx.
Brazil 3 % approx. State of Parana: Pinhais and Palotina: 6 municipal schools
Peru 10 % approx

Note: These are not official percentages and these figures are growing daily.

Spreading Systematic Synthetic Phonics

My main objective is to train all teachers in SSP, so wherever they teach, they take along the method!

You can find a list of schools and countries in Latin America using SSP to teach children how to read and write in English on my website (not complete as I cannot control the spread of SSP any more… it is in the hands of the teachers now!)

http://gracevilarphonics.weebly.com/schools.html

Year One Phonics Screening Check

This check is statutory in England; it is freely available to all practitioners and IFERI promotes the adoption of this check.  Click here to find out more, and to read about the success of the screening check in The British School of Costa Rica.

Examples of Children Reading

Fernando, 6 years old, from Argentina, his mother tongue is Spanish: Fernando has had one year of SSP instruction. We see Fernando reading decodable books at ‘first sight’:

Catalina, 6 years old, from Argentina, her mother tongue is Spanish: We see Catalina reading and writing nonsense words:

Grace Vilar is a Bilingual Literacy and Educational Consultant and Synthetic Phonics Trainer. She is also a member of the IFERI Committee.

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