Nearly six in 10 SA Year 1 students fail to reach expected standard in phonics check

More than half of Year 1 students who took part in the state’s first full-scale phonics check did not meet the expected standard, and more than 560 students could not read a single word correctly.

More than half of all Year 1 students who took part in the state’s first full-scale early reading check did not meet the expected standard, and more than 560 students could not read a single word correctly.

Almost 14,000 students from 432 public schools last year did the phonics screening check, which presents children with 40 words.

As children know some real words by memory, half of them are fake words in order to test their ability to “decode” them by blending letters into sounds - a key building block for reading.

Dr Jennifer Buckingham from the Centre for Independent Studies determined that, under the Australian Curriculum, the “expected achievement” standard should be students decoding and reading aloud 28 of the 40 words by the middle of Year 1.

Just 43 per cent of Year 1s, 5951 students, met or exceeded that mark. Results show:

IN METRO schools, 45 per cent of students met the standard, while only 36 per cent from rural and regional schools did.

FEWER than one in five (18 per cent) students from schools in disadvantaged areas met the standard, compared to 55 per cent of those from advantaged areas.

ONE in every 25 students - 566 children - did not get any words right. Of those, two-thirds did not have a verified disability.

STUDENTS who speak English as a second language did better than the overall cohort, with 48 per cent meeting the standard.

GIRLS did slightly better than boys, 44 per cent versus 42 per cent.

ONE in seven students with a verified disability met the standard. SA is the first state to implement a comprehensive phonics check.

Students were expected to read aloud 28 of the 40 words in the test, but only 43 per cent of those tested met that mark. Picture: iStock

Education Minister John Gardner, pictured, said: “We know that a number of students are capable of remembering or guessing a number of simple worlds in texts read by Year 1 students, even if they are struggling with their phonics.

“This can cause them great difficulty in their reading once texts get more complicated. “Identifying these students early, before they really begin struggling with reading, is a particularly important aspect as to why the Marshall Liberal Government has implemented the check.”

The check is based on one used in the UK where the standard for Year 1 is 32 of 40 words, based on a different curiculum. Ninety per cent of UK kids met that mark in 2017, up from 32 per cent when the check was introduced in 2012.

The former SA Labor government instigated a trial in 2017 involving more than 4400 Reception and Year 1 students. In the trial, teachers stopped the check once a student got three words wrong. Last year, it was left up to teachers to determine when to cease a check for a struggling student, as is the case in the UK. Both the Liberal and Labor parties committed to roll out an annual check for all Year 1 public students.

Mr Gardner said “significant resources” had been spent on the rollout, including training for teachers and principals and relief teacher time so regular teachers could administer the check and make plans for students found to need help.

He was confident the Government’s literacy policies would produce “strong improvements in the years ahead”. They included the Education Department’s new “literacy guarantee unit”, which has 13 literacy coaches working directly with teachers to improving teaching of reading, professional development conferences and online resources for teachers and parents.

Opposition education spokeswoman Susan Close claimed Mr Gardner had not ruled out cuts to literacy-focused bureaucrats.

Mr Gardner said that was “a complete nonsense”.

Words in the 2018 phonics check:

Easy fake words: pib, vus, yop, elt, desh, chab, poil, queep, stin, proom, sarps, thend

Easy real words: chip, jazz, farm, thorn, stop, truck, jump, lords

Harder fake words: kigh, girst, baim, yune, flods, groiks, strom, splaw

Harder real words: fair, flute, goat, shine, crept, shrubs, scrap, stroke, index, turnip, waiting, portrait