Performance of Australian children on the English Phonics Screening Check following systematic synthetic phonics instruction in the first two years of schooling. Issue 2 (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wheldall, Kevin; Bell, Nicola; Wheldall, Robyn; Madelaine, Alison; Reynolds, Meree
• Is Part Of: Australian journal of learning difficulties. Volume 24:Issue 2(2019)
• Page Start: 131
• Page End: 145
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Remedial teaching -- Periodicals; Remedial teaching -- Australia -- Periodicals; 371.905
• DOI: 10.1080/19404158.2019.1635500
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1940-4158

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Recently, there has been debate surrounding the potential implementation of the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) in Australian primary schools. The present study sought to investigate the child- and task-related factors influencing the PSC performances of Year 1 Australian students, who had received almost two years of systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) instruction. Non-parametric between- and within-group comparisons and correlational analyses were conducted to examine whether performance was influenced by gender, age, school site, real word status and item complexity. Approximately 82% of the students obtained or exceeded the South Australian PSC trial threshold of 28 points out of 40, which suggests the students were, on average, developing adequate word-level decoding skills. The only child- and task-related factors to emerge as statistically significant were age and item complexity.