Will Hunter, Yorke Peninsula Country Times
Primary school students across the state have continued to show improvements in literacy, the 2023 phonics screening check found.
Results from the check improved for the fifth consecutive year, with 65 per cent of year 1 students located in country regions meeting or exceeding expectations, meaning they correctly decoded 28 or more words out of 40.
The check gives educators an indication how their students are progressing in phonics — the relationship between letters and sounds — which is a critical skill for learning to read.
Wallaroo Primary School teacher Chloe Adams said the school’s students have shown steady improvements in literacy and significant improvement in reading fluency since the program was implemented in 2018.
“The program is running through the junior primary years at the moment and is designed to build upon the skills learned in the previous year, so we’re seeing our foundation students’ progress through their schooling with stronger skills,” Ms Adams said.
“We’re finding our students are better at decoding and reading and their overall results in English have also been stronger.”
Principal Scott Moore said teachers at the site have developed explicit routines to deliver a program which provides a consistent and structured learning approach.
“Our focus has been to treat the phonics check as a screening tool rather than a test,” Mr Moore said.
“This means we can meet students at their point of need more accurately, which I think is what is leading to the better outcomes; they’re not seeing it as a test because we’re not using it as one.
“We’ve also focused on early intervention, particularly with older students, to close the gap in their learning so they have strong phonics skills as they work their way up through the upper primary years, as that flows through to their other learning.”
The phonics screening check is completed state-wide in term 3 each year; this scheduling gives year 1 students adequate time to develop their phonics skills, while still allowing for intervention for students who require it.
This article appeared in the Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 12 December 2023.
