iferi.org

This is fantastic news for Australia - announced 29th January 2017:

http://www.senatorbirmingham.com.au/Lat ... ty-reforms

Literacy and numeracy check for all Aussie schools under the Turnbull Government's quality reforms

The Turnbull Government has announced an expert group of principals, teachers, speech specialists, academics and researchers will progress the staged implementation of a nation-wide phonics assessment and the development of a numeracy check.

Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham said the short assessments of year 1 students' literacy and numeracy skills are backed by evidence and will provide early identification of those students who are behind so they can be targeted with interventions before the achievement gap grows.

This is very exciting news for IFERI as one of our organisation's main aims is to promote global use of a Year One phonics screening check akin to England's statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check. England's introduction to the check in 2012 provides a baseline measure for all scenarios where English is taught for reading. The check provides a professional steer regarding teaching effectiveness and also provides an indication of individual children's technical alphabetic code knowledge and decoding skill. In England we have seen year on year improvements in teaching effectiveness since the check and many schools have shown that all, or virtually all, the children can be taught the technical knowledge and skills required to read both real words and unknown pseudo-words. This raises very serious questions indeed regarding the identification of 'special needs' - how much of special needs statistics are as much about teaching methods and effectiveness rather than the individual child's learning differences and needs?

Attention now needs to turn regarding adoption of the check throughout the UK, however, as only England, to date, uses a national phonics check. IFERI committee member, Anne Glennie, has raised the alarm regarding flawed or misguided teacher-education and low aspirations for literacy in Scotland. See her short but powerful alarm here, 'The Attainment gap? What about the teaching gap?':

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxqpNzASnJA

Back to Australia, congratulations and a sincere thanks to Simon Birmingham, Minister for Education and Training, who has had the foresight to recognise the importance of the adoption of a simple phonics check in Australia.

IFERI is very reassured to note the panel members selected to report back to the Education Council in mid-2017. Two members of the panel are members of IFERI's Advisory Group. Here is the full panel:

Ms Mandy Nayton OAM – Chief Executive Officer, Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation, Western Australian President AUSPELD
Professor Pamela Snow – Head of the La Trobe Rural Health School, registered psychologist, having qualified originally in speech pathology
Dr Jennifer Buckingham – Education Research Fellow the Centre for Independent Studies
Mr Steven Capp – Principal, Bentleigh West Primary School Victoria
Professor Geoff Prince – Director, Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute
Ms Allason McNamara – Maths Teacher at Trinity Grammar, Kew, Vic, President Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers (AAMT)

Minister Birmingham said:

“These highly regarded academic, health and education experts will drive these reforms, establish an implementation plan including an initial pilot to be scaled up to an early years’ skills check for all Australian students. They will consider the frequency, timing and core skills to be assessed prior to reporting by mid-2017.

“This panel will also consider existing examples from Australia and overseas, such as the Year 1 phonics check used in England that involves children verbally identifying letters and sounds in both real words and made up words to show a child’s understanding of how language works.

“Similar numeracy checks see children undertake tasks such as simple counting, recognising numbers, naming shapes and demonstrating basic measurement knowledge.”

Minister Birmingham said the implementation of the phonics assessment was an example of an evidence-backed reform that had previously been lost in the “washing machine debate” of schools funding over many years.

It must be noted that there are many people working collaboratively to bring about these changes in Australia (and have done for years) - people behind the scenes who may never get recognition - not that they seek it - but who have provided research evidence, personal testimony, responded to calls for evidence, written open letters, responded to media features, made changes to practice in schools which demonstrate the profound difference teaching methods and content can make - and so on.

Whilst people are commonly frustrated with the political class, it also needs to be noted that there are, and always have been, politicians who have listened objectively, transparently and honestly to information provided by others and put into motion necessary reviews and legislation in the field of education. There is much that politicians get wrong, and tinker needlessly with perhaps to manifest their political and ideological views, but these are times when, thanks to the internet and the communication networks that have been made available to us, we are more able to group together and hold those in authority to account.

I've added the news to this thread:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... 1322#p1322

Greg Ashman writes about Simon Birmingham's announcement via his Filling the Pail blog:

https://gregashman.wordpress.com/2017/0 ... australia/

New Year 1 literacy and numeracy tests for Australia

No doubt we will see a flurry of apoplectic articles in the next few days and quite a lot of ranting on Twitter. Simon Birmingham, Australia’s minister for education and training, has announced that he intends to push ahead with new literacy and numeracy assessments for Year 1 students and he has announced a panel who will move this forward.

I cautiously welcome this, albeit with a heavy heart.

Read about why Greg says he has a 'heavy heart'!

But I urge him to be heartened - along with all teachers in Australia - as this could be a real changing moment in the history of education in Australia.

Yes, here in England we have had more than our fair share of protestors to the check - and even to 'phonics' - but I meet plenty of teachers who value the check - some can't wait to do it to see how their children are faring - they have 'professional curiosity'. They understand how the check can be used positively to inform them - and, several years after the advent of the check being introduced in England, they welcome the improvements in their teaching which of course has benefited the children going through their hands enormously.

An increasing number of schools achieve 90% to 100% of their Year One children reaching or exceeding the 'benchmark' of 32 out of 40 words read correctly or plausibly for the pseudo-words. More children are reading all the words correctly. This is all very exciting but it also shows the parlous state of reading instruction prior to the push on phonics and the check.



Greg's blog might get some interesting responses so keep an eye on the readers' comments!

Here is a piece in the Financial Review:

http://www.afr.com/news/policy/educatio ... 129-gu0xw2

The next step in Simon Birmingham's back-to-basics push: literacy and numeracy check for six-year-olds

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham is pushing ahead with a literacy and numeracy check for year 1 children in an effort to turn around Australia's declining performance in international school education tests.

On Sunday he announced a six-person panel to report to all education ministers by mid-2017 with a plan to implement the change, which will include an initial pilot program.

The literacy and numeracy check is a key part of Senator Birmingham's "back to basics" policy of improving school results without major funding increases.

He said the check would be a "light touch" assessment to let teachers and parents know as soon as possible if children were not picking up reading and counting skills as quickly as they should.

The literacy check will include a phonics assessment that tests how well children understand how to sound out words. Senator Birmingham said the phonics assessment was an example of an evidence-backed reform that had previously been lost in the "washing machine debate" about school funding.

"In England, the improvement in the first five years of students taking part in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check has been significant," he said.

The year 1 tests are likely to be based on the assessments used in England that involve children verbally identifying letters and sounds in real and made-up words, simple counting, recognising numbers, naming shapes and demonstrating basic measurement knowledge.

The main teachers union has labelled the literacy and numeracy check as a distraction. Australian Education Union president Correna Haythorpe said she doubted the tests would help to lift literacy and numeracy standards without schools also getting resources to help students identified as struggling.

The Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia (AHISA) welcomed the establishment of the panel but warned Australia should not follow the British model "until its suitability for the Australian context is fully tested".

"The UK model has been criticised by academics and educators for its failure to provide teachers with more information on students' phonic skills than is already available through regular testing," AHISA chief executive Beth Blackwood said.

The panel members are: Mandy Nayton, chief executive of the Dyslexia-SPELD Foundation; Pamela Snow, head of the La Trobe Rural Health School; Jennifer Buckingham, education research fellow at Centre for Independent Studies; Steven Capp, principal of Bentleigh West Primary School in Victoria; Geoff Prince, director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute; and Allason McNamara, president of Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers.

I'm linking to Dick Schutz's comments on the 'natural experiment' of the year one phonics check:

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=691

I expect there will be plenty of responses in the media - here is one in the Herald Sun:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor ... 590d77d52f

Teachers forced to teach children phonics in major “back to basics” move

Lauren Martyn-Jones, Education Reporter, Herald Sun
January 28, 2017 10:00am

VICTORIAN teachers will be forced to teach children to read by sounding out words in a major “back to basics” education move.

Students will learn phonics, a method that teaches them how letter combinations, such as “ch” in cheese, make different sounds.

Currently students are taught to read by the “look-say” approach of recognising whole words.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham will today announce he plans to begin work on a compulsory literacy and numeracy screening check for all six-year-olds.

The test will be the first step in a plan to identify weaknesses in the way basic literacy skills are taught in the early years of school.

The reform, which is being fast-tracked after dismal global literacy and numeracy tests saw Australian children outperformed by kids in countries like Kazakhstan, is expected to lead to a shake-up in phonics teaching.

University teaching degrees, which are failing to equip graduates with the skills to properly teach children the building blocks of reading, are also expected to face scrutiny.

The phonics and numeracy test, first flagged in last year’s Budget, will be linked to the future school funding deal but, as funding negotiations drag on, Senator Birmingham has declared work on the phonics test cannot wait.

“There is an urgent need to stop so many children falling through the cracks in Australian classrooms, especially with the foundation skill of reading,” Senator Birmingham said.

“Australia’s education performance in recent national and international reports has raised a red flag for both policymakers and parents that requires action now.”

Berwick Lodge Primary School principal Henry Grossek hit out at the introduction of another test, on top of assessments for prep students and NAPLAN testing of students in grades 3, 5, 7 and 9.

“We don’t need another national testing regime to ascertain the gaps in children’s learning,” he said.

“It might satisfy the whims of some politicians, but I don’t believe it’s a lack of testing that is the problem. What we need are the resources targeted to adequately support those children struggling in their learning.”

Elliott, 6, has been learning to read and write with the help of phonics.

His mum, Sally Webb, said joining sounds together to read new words had helped Elliott learn quickly.

“It’s amazing to see his progress from when he started prep with barely any knowledge to being able to read so well within a year,” she said.

lauren.martyn-jones@news.com.au

Professor Pamela Snow draws attention to two good pieces explaining the issues around adoption of a year one phonics check:

Why is a Phonics Check a good idea in Australia?

http://pamelasnow.blogspot.co.uk/2016/1 ... ea-in.html

Why Australia should trial the new phonics screening check

https://theconversation.com/why-austral ... heck-69717

Professor Pamela Snow writes another post on phonics and the check:

http://pamelasnow.blogspot.co.uk/2017/0 ... onics.html

The story of an ugly duckling. Aka Phonics Check Furphies.

I have never met a teacher who is not sincere about trying to do the best they can for the students in their classrooms. Insincere teachers may exist, but I don’t see them. Fortunately, in the context of the ongoing community, academic, and political debate about phonics instruction and assessment of children's phonics skills, teachers’ sincerity is not at issue. However it is also not enough, regardless of its abundance.

This piece in The Examiner includes a poll about the phonics check!

http://www.examiner.com.au/story/443702 ... ania-poll/

Speech Pathology Tasmania backs grade 1 phonics checks

Phonics tests for grade 1 students will help bridge the gap between struggling and thriving children, according to Speech Pathology Tasmania.

Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham announced this week that an expert group of principals, teachers, speech specialists, academics and researchers would progress the staged implementation of a nationwide phonics assessment and the development of a numeracy check.

It followed three significant national and international reports in 2016 that showed Australia’s education performance was “at best plateauing and at worst declining”.

Speech Pathology Tasmania’s Rosalie Martin said phonics reading was extremely important for children to learn decoding skills in language.

“Phonics is the ability to make a link between the sounds we hear in spoken language and the letters on the pages. Children need to get that link between sound and letters.”

She said screening children was essential.

“Screening really matters. It tells us how a child is going, and this can help us understand what they need.

“What we want to see as a result of this is those kids that need extra help, catching up, because we then know what they need.

“It will give those children a good jump start.”

Ms Martin said, at the moment, the education system was not managing to close the gap between students who were thriving at school and children who were struggling.

“Something needs to be done.

“This phonics check for grade 1 students will allow for early intervention by teaching relevant skills to students who need it.

“We want the information gathered to then feed back into pre-teacher training.

"It’s about providing teachers with the knowledge and ability to teach phonics with consistency and quality across Australian schools.”

Do you think grade 1 students should be tested on phonics?

Yes
No
Maybe

Vote

View Results

The expert panel tasked with implementing the checks will report back to the Education Council in mid-2017.

“It’s important to identify if a child is not learning to read effectively, because then you can intervene and fix the problem,” Mr Birmingham said.

“The evidence indicates that once a child reaches the age of eight there are enormous challenges to turning that around and the learning gap only blows out further.”

So far there have been 53 responses:

77% say Yes, 21 % say No, and 4 % say Maybe.

I've started a new thread for this piece by Dr Lorraine Hammond and Alison Clarke in The Conversation:

Why do we need a phonics test for six year olds

http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... 1341#p1341