The 2020 trial involved about a third of NSW primary schools so cannot be directly compared to the compulsory 2021 test,which was held in term four after students missed a term of face-to-face lessons.
In the 2021 check,56.7 per cent of children answered 28 or more questions correctly and the average number of correct answers was 26.5.
Students from the top quartile of advantage – those with professional,highly educated parents – were twice as likely (76 per cent) to meet or exceed the expected level of 28 than those in the bottom quartile (32 per cent).
Not quite 30 per cent of Aboriginal students met the expected score,and more students in the city (60.9 per cent) met the standard than those living in inner regional (45),outer regional (39) or remote (31) areas.
The reading wars over whether children learn best by focusing on learning letter-sound combinations,which is known as phonics,or being exposed to words,or balanced literacy,have raged for decades.
In the past few years NSW has endorsed a phonics-based approach,which will be embedded in itsnew kindergarten to year 2 curriculum,after internal Department of Education research found balanced literacy to be less effective. But the debate still continues in other jurisdictions,such as Victoria,and in other systems,such as some NSW Catholic dioceses.
Jennifer Buckingham,a phonics advocate and director of strategy at reading company MultiLit,said the NSW results were similar to the outcome of the first screening check in other jurisdictions,such as the UK.
“Next year will give a sense of the K-2 syllabus and how it might have improved things,” she said.
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Dr Buckingham said there was no reason why disadvantaged children should not read as well as advantaged ones,given that research showed all children could reach benchmarks with high-quality reading instruction in their classroom. The idea that children learn to read by being surrounded by books has been discredited.
“Vocabulary is a different thing,it’s more related to socio-economic status,because of the different use of language in the home,home literacy and home language environment is harder to bridge,” she said.
She said that with phonics instruction,those things could be ameliorated,and that the advantage gap was one thing she hoped would significantly change next year. “All children in low[socio-educational] schools should be getting really high-quality phonics instruction,” Dr Buckingham said.
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South Australia was the first jurisdiction to begin the screening test in 2018. Since it was introduced,the number of students able to meet the benchmark has grown from 43 per cent to 67 per cent last year.
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