New government figures from the Department for Education (DfE) have shown that more five- and six-year-old children in Year One in England are meeting the expected standard in the phonics test.
The test requires pupils to spell out a combination of real words and “non-words” that allow the child to blend common sounds together to form longer words. This method has been shown to help the majority of children learn to read more accurately and fluently.
If the child does not meet the expected standard of phonic-decoding in the Year-One check, they have to take the test again a year later, when they are in Year Two.
In 2012, only 58% of Year-One children passed the check. This figure rose to 69% for 2013, and the statistics for this year have shown that just shy of three-quarters of pupils - 74% - were at the expected level.
According to the DfE, this means that around 100,000 more children have benefited from learning to read and spell through the phonics method than two years ago, helping them to get “on track to become excellent readers”.
Pupils from Year One weren’t the only ones to see an increase of passes though, as the number of Year Twos passing the check also increased.
And although there has always been an attainment gap between children from disadvantaged families and their better-off classmates, this gap closed minutely by 1% between 2013 and 2014.
“For too long, thousands of young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, were allowed to slip through the net and fall behind on reading,” said Schools Minister Nick Gibb.
Mr Gibb said the statistics were “irrefutable evidence that [the government’s] plan for education is working”. He added that more and more schools are using the phonics method in a way that was helping their pupils to learn to read properly.
It was also found that almost all of the children who passed the phonics test the first time around went on to either meet or exceed reading level benchmarks for Year Two.
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