Students in secondary school should sit more detailed reading tests so that support can be better targeted at their needs, according to a new expert report.
Researchers found that about one in five children enter secondary school with their reading or vocabulary skills two years or more behind expected levels.
Their report calls for reading tests used in schools to be revised so that they differentiate between deficiencies in proficiency, vocabulary and comprehension.
The Reading and Vocabulary project tracked 598 children from age 10 to 13, testing their reading skills at five points during their transition from primary to secondary school and over the following summer holidays. The study involved children from 16 primary schools and 53 secondary schools in Birmingham, just over half of whom were girls.
The report’s authors, Professor Jessie Ricketts, from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Dr Laura Shapiro, from the School of Psychology at Aston University, have written for Tes, offering insights to help schools drive up attainment.
Targeted support for reading and vocabulary
Their report, Exploring How Skilled Independent Reading Supports Vocabulary Learning in Primary and Secondary School, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, calls for increased monitoring and more targeted support for reading and vocabulary in upper primary and secondary schools.
They also want to see better continuity between primary and secondary school basic skills curricula to help students make a successful transition.
And they found that more proficient readers are better able to learn and remember new vocabulary and more likely to read for pleasure.
The authors recommend a two-step approach to identifying reading needs: firstly, using a screening tool that can be administered to groups of students to identify whether a reading need is likely.
However, they warn that screening tools tend to over-identify reading needs and lack precision, so they suggest that these should be followed up with a second step: individualised diagnostic assessments that confirm reading needs and provide additional information about their nature.
The researchers say: “This second step is crucial to avoid providing resource-intensive support and interventions where they aren’t needed, either because the child does not have a reading need or because their need is not well aligned with that kind of support or intervention.”
The report offers the example that phonics support is not appropriate when the need is reading comprehension rather than word reading proficiency.
At government and policy level, the report calls for curriculum change and more funding for schools. “The primary English curriculum focuses on literacy knowledge and skills, whereas the emphasis shifts to English as a discipline in secondary. Policy-level change is needed to promote more continuity in curricula and expectations across primary and secondary settings,” the authors write.
“For example, knowledge and skills need continued support throughout secondary alongside the English and broader curriculum. In addition, funding is needed to ensure that the secondary curriculum is complemented by robust approaches to identifying and supporting reading and language needs in secondary school.”
The report identifies “considerable” variability in reading and vocabulary attainments among students from lower SES (socioeconomic status) backgrounds showing lower attainments. “In terms of the level of support required, 10-20 per cent of students entering secondary school have reading or vocabulary attainments that are two years or more below what would be expected, on average, for their age. This level of reading will form a barrier to accessing much of the secondary curriculum,” the report observes.
It adds that secondary school teachers often report that children’s attainment in their first year is below what would be expected from their Sats results in Year 6, which has led to the theory that there is often a slump in attainment during the transition from primary to secondary school.
However, the project found that development followed a similar pattern in all summers.
“Children continued to learn everyday vocabulary at the same rate all year round (words like ‘adjustable’, ‘citrus’, ‘foundation’), but their learning of specialist vocabulary linked to the curriculum slowed down each summer, compared to during the school year (words like ‘hibernate’, ‘periscope’, ‘translucent’),” the report says.
Dr Shapiro said: “Our results show that the issue is not a slump in attainment but a jump in expectations. In secondary school, students need to learn a wide range of vocabulary across different subject areas taught by specialist teachers.
“If students don’t have the reading proficiency to learn in this new environment then that presents a barrier to accessing the secondary curriculum. Closer coordination between primary and secondary schools, such as a basic skills curriculum that continues through the transition, could help to mitigate this.”
Professor Ricketts commented that while the connection between reading proficiency and learning new words might seem obvious, this is the first time this has been demonstrated in a real-life context. “We show that, if we can help children to read more proficiently, then other benefits are likely to follow, such as better learning of new vocabulary and more time spent reading. Similarly, if reading proficiency is low then children are going to be struggling to learn new words, which will disadvantage them in the transition to secondary school,” she explained.
The Department for Education has been approached for comment.
