English children rise in world reading table

The Tories took on the ideologues to put phonics into education and the results speak for themselves

Reading standards in England are the best in a generation, with the country having risen in the ranks since schools were required to teach phonics. An international study of reading ability put England joint eighth, the country’s highest ranking since the test was introduced in 2001.

READING standards in England are the best in a generation, as new international test results show that the phonics push has led to a dramatic shift in children’s attainment.

A study of the reading ability of nine and 10-year-olds in 50 countries, which is published today, puts England in joint eighth place, the country’s highest ranking since the test was introduced in 2001. Nick Gibb, the schools minister, said that this was the first definitive set of evidence that one of the Government’s most controversial education reforms was working.

In 2010, the Conservative Party changed the national curriculum to require

“Before 2010, we knew something was wrong with the way our primary schools taught reading’

schools to use phonics, where children are taught to read by learning individual sounds and then blending different sounds together into words.

The method has been championed by the Government as key to raising literacy standards, but has faced staunch opposition. A phonics screening check for six-year-olds was also introduced – a move that came under heavy criticism from teaching unions.

This test consists of a list of 40 words that the child reads to their teacher. Half the words are ordinary words and the other half are made up “pseudowords” – these are included to make sure that children have been taught to decode words using phonics rather than learning words by sight.

Previously, schools used variations of the “look and say” method, where children are repeatedly shown frequently used words until they are able to recognise them automatically.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph today, Mr Gibb said: “In the years just before we came into government in 2010, we knew something was wrong with the way our primary schools taught reading; England was falling down the international league tables.

“The international data also showed a wider gap between top and bottom performers than in most other countries. England was well known for its ‘long tail of underachievement’.”

Mr Gibb said that, despite the overwhelming body of evidence in favour of phonics, the Government faced opposition from those who were against testing, professors of education who “had built a career on teaching teachers to use the ‘look and say’ approach”, and teaching unions.

“We pressed on none the less, confident in the evidence base and encouraged by the thousands of teachers who had embraced and supported this method of teaching children to read and who could see the results in their classrooms,” he said.

Children who participated in the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) were the first to be taught using phonics. In 2011, England came joint tenth in PIRLS, which is run every five years. England came 15th in 2006 and third in 2001.

“Today, we received the first set of international evidence since our more rigorous, knowledge-rich primary school curriculum was introduced, and they confirm that our approach is working,” Mr Gibb said.

In 2012, the first year of the phonics check, 58 per cent of six-year-olds reached the pass mark. This year, 81 per cent reached that standard, with 92 per cent reaching it by the end of Year 2.

One of the most controversial reforms introduced by the Conservative-led government in 2010 was our decision to require schools to use phonics to teach children to read. Phonics teaches children to sound out words, sound by sound, and then “blend” those sounds together; for example, c-a-t cat.

Before 2010, we knew something was wrong with the way our primary schools taught reading; England was falling down the league tables. The international data also showed a wider gap between top and bottom performers than in most other countries. England was well known for its “long tail of underachievement”.

Schools were using variations of a method called “look and say” to teach reading, in which children encountered frequently used words over and over again until they were recognised automatically. But this was letting down too many, particularly the least able. Decades of evidence pointed to systematic phonics as the most effective way to teach reading.

When we came into office, therefore, one of the first things we did was to change the National Curriculum, explicitly requiring schools to teach reading using phonics. We funded training and materials for schools. And, most controversial of all, we introduced a test for all six-year-olds, called the Phonics Screening Check.

This test consists of a list of 40 words that the child reads to their teacher. Half are ordinary and the other half are made up “pseudowords”, with the inclusion of the latter ensuring that children have been taught to decode words using phonics rather than learn them by sight. In 2012, the first year of the Phonics Check, just 58 per cent of six-year-olds reached the pass mark. This year, 81 per cent of six-year-olds reached that standard, with 92 per cent of children reaching it by the end of year 2. But we are ambitious, and want to drive up these results even further.

Reading is the fundamental building block to a successful education. Securing the mechanical ability to translate the hieroglyphics of letters into words is a necessary component to achieving fluency, allowing children to build their speed, their comprehension and to develop a habit of reading for pleasure. Extraordinarily – despite all of the evidence in favour of phonics – we faced opposition from various lobby groups: those opposed to testing; professors of education who had built a career out of the “look and say” approach; and the teaching unions.

We pressed on nonetheless, and today we receive the first set of international evidence since our more rigorous, knowledge-rich primary school curriculum was introduced. It confirms that our approach is working. The study of nine to 10-year-olds’ reading ability in 50 countries shows that England had risen to joint eighth place in 2016, thanks to a statistically significant rise in our average score. In 2011 England was ranked joint 10th.

Perhaps most importantly, today’s results – which are the country’s best since the study was introduced in 2001 and are a dramatic improvement on 2006 – show reading has improved for pupils from all backgrounds, but the low-performing are gaining most rapidly. The tide is rising, but it is rising fastest for those who need it most. Slowly, but surely – thanks to a relentless focus on rigour – England is dealing with the “long tail of underachievement”.

The pupils who took part in the survey were the first cohort to have taken the Phonics Screening Check in 2012. They are also the first cohort to be taught with a renewed focus on children reading more and enjoying challenging texts in the classroom.

These results are a vindication of the Government’s boldness in pursuing the evidence in the face of ideological criticism. They are a tribute to the hard work of primary teachers who have revolutionised the way children are taught to read in this country. And they promise even more in the future.

They also reflect the raising of standards in schools more generally. This summer, secondary schools took the new, more demanding, GCSES in English and maths, and despite claims that a fresh focus on core academic subjects would worsen outcomes for disadvantaged pupils, the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their more affluent peers has shrunk by 7 per cent since 2011.

The 5,000 nine to 10-year-olds in England who took part in this international study in 2016 all took the Phonics Check in 2012. Future international studies will be of children taught even more effectively as the proportion passing the test has risen steadily year on year and our reforms have been fully implemented. This year, 154,000 more six-year-olds were on track to be fluent readers than in 2012.

Today’s results show that we are building a Britain fit for the future, where every child is afforded the best start in life because of our education reforms. But we know there is still more to do and we will continue to build on our success to ensure England leads the world.