The tests we used

The reading and, where relevant, spelling and vocabulary skills of every child in the school was tested during the first two weeks of the September 2006 term prior to the introduction of the synthetic phonic reading scheme.

Follow up tests were done at the beginning of July after 10 months of the scheme.

We were advised by Professor Jackie Masterson, Professor of Psychology of Reading at the Institute of Education in London. We also discussed the suitability of a variety of assessments with numerous academics, teachers and educational psychologists.

Skills

When you test reading you are looking at two different skills:

Firstly the ability to decode a word – to be able to sound it out or recognise it and to be able to say it out loud. To test decoding ability children are usually asked to read out single words. This tests whether they can read the word - but not whether they understand it. This type of test has to be carried out on a one-to-one basis with every child. A suitably qualified teacher or educational psychologist listens to the child reading the words and keeps a score card.

The one-to-one nature of these tests meant that we could not use them for every single child at Monteagle primary because there are up to 620 pupils ie, three classes of up to 30 children in every academic year from reception to year 6.

The test that we decided on for the majority of children at Monteagle was the Suffolk Reading Scale. This is a test of both decoding ability and comprehension – the child must not only be able to sound out or recognise the word but also be able to understand what it is that they have read. A good reader is good at both decoding and comprehension. A child who has a good vocabulary but who is not able to decode properly will not score well on this test nor will a child who is able to decode just about anything but who does not understand what the words mean.

We were advised to use the Suffolk Rading Scale because it has been recently calibrated on a large number of British children and because it is easy to administer to a whole class at once and can then be computer marked. There are two test papers available at each level so that when we tested the children in July they were given a different set of questions to those they had seen in September.

The children are required to read sentences and then select the missing word from a choice of 5 words to complete the sentence. Eg:

You ____________ water to make tea

The Suffolk Reading Scale can be used to establish a child's reading age. This means that it can provide an estimate of the age a child would be expected to be from the score that they got on the test. So a child who is 7 years and 10 months old but who is behind where the average child of that age would be would have a reading age younger than their chronological age. The Suffolk Reading Scale was used for all children from Year 2 to 6 (from age 6 to 11) and was administered by their class teachers.

There is a simplified version of the Suffolk Reading Scale called Reading Now which is designed for Year 1 children (age 5-6) and this version was used for the Year 1 children and some children higher up the school who were known to be very poor readers.

For our analysis we have categorised children who have a reading age more than 12 months behind their chronological age as having problems with their reading or being behind with their reading. Children who do not score highly enough to score a reading age on the tests are described as none readers. Children who score no more than four months behind their chronological age or better on the tests are described as readers who are reading at their correct level or better.

Spelling

All children from Years 1 to 6 were given a spelling test – The Single Word Spelling Test published by nfer Nelson. This was also administered by their class teachers to the whole class. This test has a different word list for each year group and gives a result in the form of a spelling age.

The reception class children are aged 4 or 5 and they had just started school in September. They would not be expected to be reading and are too young to do these tests. Each reception child was assessed by an educational psychologist under the supervision of Professor Masterson using the British Picture Vocabulary Scale 2nd edition to establish their English vocabulary and the Word Reading card from British Ability Scales 2 to see if they had any reading skills. Some of the older children who had been identified by the school as having problems with reading or English language were assessed in the same way by the educational psychologists.

A problem we experienced with the testing was the poor attendance of some children who were not at the school during the testing process and the high turnover of children at Monteagle. Typically there would be children on the class register who did not turn up and then other children started after the beginning of term who were not on the original register. During the course of the school year September 2006 to mid June 2007 96 new children arrived and 60 children left.

For our September results we have included all children who were tested in September. For our July end of year results we have included all children who started at Monteagle no later than the end of the autumn term – December 2006 and were still at the school during the first week of July.

The reading and spelling results only include children from Years 1 to 6.

September results

• There were 421 children tested in September, 195 were girls and 226 boys. Ratio of girls to boys 46:54 which is typical in a British school.



• 230 children scored reading ages of more than a year behind their chronological age i.e. at least 13 months behind.



• So 55% of the children at Monteagle were more than a year behind and therefore have reading difficulties.



• Of these children 121 failed to score a reading age at all. These children are non-readers and are 29% of the children at Monteagle.



• The non-readers were predominately boys. There were 73 boys and 48 girls i.e. 63% boys and 37% girls.

Suffolk Reading Scale & Reading Now results in September by year group

* the majority of these children were working at or above their chronological reading age.

These results are much lower than national average figures for Suffolk Reading Scale and Reading Now and show clearly the scale of the literacy problem facing Monteagle Primary in September 2006.

Based on Sats results at age 10/11 – which don't directly measure a pure reading age – in Britain 80% of children would be working at close to or above expected reading level. Twenty per cent would be more than a year behind and just 6% would be none readers.

The Monteagle Project | The Challenges | A Week in the Life of the Programme… | Benjamin Zephaniah | Monteagle Primary School Poem | Shane's Poem | Why We Did It | What Monteagle Did and What It Cost | The Testing of Reading Ability at Monteagle Primary School

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