PIRLS before Swine: Or why Australia sucks at reading

John Lennon was renowned for his sharp, and oft times acidic, wit. When asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, he responded that Ringo was not even the best drummer in the Beatles! I was reminded of this when reviewing the latest (2011) results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (or PIRLS). Not only were Australian students not the best readers in the world, they were not even the best readers among the English speaking nations surveyed. They were, in fact, the worst. We can take small comfort from the fact that New Zealand performed only marginally (and not significantly) better than Australia.

The PIRLS project essentially assesses reading comprehension by requiring students to read selected texts and then to answer questions about the material read. Year 4 students are assessed because this typically marks the point of transition from learning to read to reading to learn. (Note that 2011 was the first time that Australia had taken part in PIRLS.)

Overall, 45 countries were included in the study (excluding those countries who tested older or younger readers or who took part for their own internal benchmarking purposes, and whose results are not reported). Australia came 27^th in the league table of countries (with a mean score of 527), below all other English speaking countries and significantly lower than 21 other countries overall, including all other English speaking countries except New Zealand (mean score 531).

To put this in perspective let’s look at how some of these other English-speaking countries performed. Singapore (mean score 567), for example, came 4^th, one of the four top performing countries significantly above the others. Northern Ireland came fifth (mean score 558) and the United States came 6^th (mean score 556) (compared with 14th out of 40 in 2006). England came 11th (compared with 15th out of 40 in 2006) and Canada (mean score 548) came 12^th. (Note the improvements in performance from 2006 to 2011 by both England and the United States.)

As well as reporting mean scores by country, PIRLS also provides details of performance against four benchmarks: Advanced, High, Intermediate, and Low (and those who fail even to qualify for Low ie Below Low). In Australia 7% of students failed even to meet the Low benchmark and a further 17% met only the Low benchmark. Here are comparison percentage figures for other English speaking countries of interest: 

                        Below Low    Low     Combined              

Northern Ireland		3	10	13
Singapore		3	10	13
Canada		2	12	14
United States		2	12	14
England		5	12	17
New Zealand		8	17	25
(Australia)		7	17	24

In summary, Australia and New Zealand have over twice as many students failing to meet even the minimal Low standard as Northern Ireland, Singapore, Canada and the United States; and over one and three quarters times as many low-performing students overall (Below Low and Low combined). England falls in the middle of these two groups of countries.

These results may have come as a shock to many educationists who had been blithely arguing that there was no literacy crisis in Australia. But they provided simple confirmation for Australian reading scientists who had been warning of this problem for some time and had argued (remarkably accurately, as it turns out) that a quarter of Australia’s students could be regarded as low-progress readers. In 2004, a group of Australian reading scientists and clinicians wrote an open letter to the then Federal Minister of Education, Brendan Nelson, arguing the need for reform regarding the way reading is taught in Australia and the need for literacy teaching to be based on the available scientific evidence. The subsequent National Inquiry into the Teaching of Reading reported at the end of 2005, essentially reiterating these concerns and stating clearly what needed to be done to improve reading standards in Australia. In short, the Report was subsequently simply ignored.

Moreover, following the implementation of the National Assessments Program – Literacy and Numeracy (or NAPLAN) from 2008, we were subsequently assured (annually) that all was well on the reading front. As recently as in 2012, we were reassured that for the performance of Year 3 students in Reading only 4.4% were in Band 1, having failed to meet the National Minimum Standard, and only a further 9.4% were in Band 2 ie at the national Minimum Standard (a combined total of 13.8% of students). (Note that the NAPLAN measure of reading is similar to the reading comprehension measure employed by PIRLS.)

Clearly, we have been deluding ourselves by measuring student reading performance against unrealistically low benchmarks that do not withstand international scrutiny. NAPLAN, as a reading performance measure, needs to be recalibrated against international standards so that Bands 1 and 2 combined ‘capture’ the bottom performing 25% (not the current 14%) of students. (These low-progress readers should subsequently be earmarked for immediate additional instructional support.) Moreover, it should not be beyond the wit of the NAPLAN methodologists to tie the NAPLAN scale to the metric employed by PIRLS so that progress towards achieving the international standards could readily be monitored

Finally, it is interesting to note that two English-speaking countries that have begun to take reading instruction seriously in recent years, and who have urged that reading instruction be based on the best available scientific evidence, namely the US and England, have both improved their international standing substantially in the PIRLS league table from 2006 to 2011. Similarly, the two English-speaking countries that have performed so poorly, namely Australia and New Zealand, are those that have clung most tenaciously to the discredited ‘philosophy’ of whole language literacy instruction. Can this be simple coincidence? I think not.

Reference note:

A summary of Australia’s performance in PIRLS 2011 is provided in:

Thompson, S., Hillman, K., Wernert, N., Schmid, M., Buckley, S., & Munene, A. (2012). Highlights from TIMMS & PIRLS 2011from Australia's perspective. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.

http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/TIMSS-PIRLS_Australian-Highlights.pdf

Neuromyths: ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing’

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

(Alexander Pope,

An Essay on Criticism)

When I was in my teens (which in my case lasted until I was at least 30), my father, an otherwise kind and gentle man, used to say to me on occasion, shaking his head in disbelief: “Kevin, you might be clever in some things … but you’re bloody thick in others”. (I think it was his use of the word ‘might’ that really got to me; expressing a degree of doubt.) On mature reflection, I suspect that he was often, if not always, right.

Of course, anyone who has spent any time on university committees will know that the most eminent folk, who are certainly ‘clever in some things’, can be remarkably stupid in others. The almost childlike behaviour of some academics is quite extraordinary. So it should come as no surprise that some otherwise smart and accomplished professionals, such as teachers, are capable of espousing the most curious beliefs. But I get ahead of myself …

Over the past twenty or so years, we have seen extraordinary developments in brain imaging technology such that we now have a much clearer and deeper understanding of how the brain works. At the same time, and notwithstanding this amazing progress, we still have much to learn. Perhaps even more importantly, we still have much to learn about how to put this new knowledge about the brain into practical everyday use. This has not stopped, however, a tidal wave of psychologists, educationists and others from wildly speculating about new ‘brain-based learning’. (I leave it to the reader to come up with examples of non-brain-based learning; elbow learning perhaps …?) Seemingly everywhere one looks, there is news of yet another brain-based teaching method. (Sometimes old wine is simply rebottled with a brain-based label.) My Macquarie colleagues Anne Castles and Genevieve McArthur have recently written an excellent opinion piece on this topic (http://tinyurl.com/9eqrnoa), featuring the recently much vaunted Arrowsmith Program, as a prime example.

Alongside this craze for all things brain-based, or ‘neuro’, a smaller movement has arisen, of desperate evidence-based psychologists and educators, seeking to temper enthusiasm with reality and to dispel some of the nonsense spouted by the ‘brainiacs’, also known as ‘neuromyths’. (A less polite term that you might also encounter online is ‘neurobollocks’.) Like zombies, however, neuromyths are extremely hardy and merely providing contrary empirical evidence is rarely sufficient to kill them off. They might pause, briefly, but then they keep on coming. And they breed …

The extent of this problem is revealed in a recent article by Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones and Jolles, published in Frontiers in Psychology (http://tinyurl.com/8wsjczw) which reports the results of a survey of 242 teachers conducted in the UK and the Netherlands. Over 90% expressed interest in ‘scientific knowledge about the brain’ and 90% were of the view that such knowledge would positively inform their teaching practice. The teachers responded to an online survey that mixed a selection of neuromyths with true statements about the brain. In addition to the collection of background information (about age, sex, level of education etc), they were also asked about their degree of interest in scientific knowledge about the brain and its influence on their teaching, any ‘brain-based’ methods they had encountered in their school, and whether they read popular science magazines or journals, among other questions.

Over 50% of the teachers indicated that they believed in seven of the 15 neuromyths included in the questionnaire. Over 80% expressed belief in the following: “Individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style (e.g., auditory, visual, kinesthetic)”; “Differences in hemispheric dominance (left brain, right brain) can help explain individual differences amongst learners”; and “Short bouts of co-ordination exercises can improve integration of left and right hemispheric brain function”. Over 80% of the British teachers had encountered Brain Gym (specifically) and learning styles (generally) (98%) in their schools.

So far, so bad; but it gets worse, much worse. When the researchers examined the results in more detail, they found that teachers who actually knew more about the brain tended to believe in more neuromyths. Yes, that’s right; the more they knew about the brain, the more neurobollocks they believed! As the authors put it:

“These findings suggest that teachers who are enthusiastic about the possible application of neuroscience findings in the classroom find it difficult to distinguish pseudoscience from scientific facts. Possessing greater general knowledge about the brain does not appear to protect teachers from believing in neuromyths.”

A little learning is, indeed, a dangerous thing, as Pope asserts. Later on, in the same work, he also cautions: ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’. Quite.

  

Footnote: My thanks to Max Coltheart for the most apposite quotation from Pope.

Guest post: Tiger by the Tail

The parlous state of ‘Aboriginal education’ was highlighted again with the release of the NSW Auditor General’s report on the failure to meet the ‘closing the gap’ targets. The report also makes the point that there are a good many Indigenous students who can read and write as well as their non-Indigenous peers.  This is something to be celebrated. But, as many have said before, the problem is that the ‘tail’ of underachieving students is very long (and muscular).

Why is lifting the literacy (and numeracy) level of the majority of Indigenous students such an intractable problem?  It is clear that there are instructional issues stemming from the fact that education systems are not necessarily committed to mandating that proven approaches to the teaching of reading be used in their classrooms.  Even if they were, the teacher training institutions do not necessarily turn out teachers who know how to teach reading effectively. This is a problem for all young Australians and it seems to be a matter of ‘luck’ whether you will be taught to read effectively or not in one of the nation’s classrooms. But that is an argument for another day. 

We consistently read that the poorest performing students are Indigenous students who live in remote and very remote areas of our country. Here the likely instructional inadequacies are overlaid by the myriad problems that are inherent in these ‘hard to staff’ areas.  High rates of staff turnover, young and inexperienced staff, weather events (like cyclone Larry), fresh food shortages, vast distances to be travelled, road closures, lack of replacement staff, lack of housing for school staff (and the list goes on), play havoc with delivering consistent and adequate teaching.

It does not take long in a remote community to come to grips with the enormous challenges that exist for anyone with a vision and passion for redressing this dreadful social ill; that generations of young Indigenous Australians are being relegated to lives devoid of the opportunities that are afforded by education.  We are presently failing to provide even a basic education to a sizeable minority of Indigenous students. At times this apparently intractable problem can seem quite overwhelming.

There is a solution to the provision of effective literacy instruction to these struggling students, however.  This comes in the form of the marriage of two forms of instructional technology. When one hears this term, most people think of computer hardware and its applications. But the instructional technology that informs how and what to teach predates the emergence of the information technology that most of us now take for granted. This form of ‘instructional technology’ forms the bedrock of the skills and expertise that special educators bring to the field of generic basic skills teaching.

Direct, systematic and explicit instruction that is evidence-based is what these students need to get on the road to learning success.  But how do we put those who know how to use such effective instructional technology in touch with the most needy students in remote and very remote areas?

With the advent of fast broadband technology (often excellent in these remote areas), and indeed the coming of the National Broadband Network, we are now able to by-pass all of the staffing and resourcing issues that have hampered the delivery of even the most basic schooling for so long.  We now have the means by which a struggling low-progress reader in, say, Aurukun, Coen, or Baniyala in East Arhem Land, can be taught to read directly, explicitly, systematically and intensively every day by a trained tutor or a teacher at the other end of a broadband connection.  An individual program may be delivered in this one-to-one mode thereby meeting the idiosyncratic needs of each student.

We have been trialing such an approach in Multilit and are confident that it can deliver the instruction that these students most urgently need.  The cost of providing such a service is a grain of sand compared to the desert of costs that are required to attract, retain and maintain staff in these remote areas.  All that is required at each end is a computer, a camera and a headset (also reducing some of the problems of ‘white noise’ in a classroom for students with hearing impairment) and a student ready to learn. Moreover, the integrity and fidelity of the instruction can be assured as monitoring such instruction from the ‘hub’ is easily done.

When we first started our work on Cape York in 2004, a skeptical local educator of some stature said to me, “So….. you’re going to catch the tiger by the tail, are you ?”.  I took it as a challenge. Our subsequent years of work on the Cape confirmed that we could in fact get students moving and learning to read using scientific evidence-based methods, such as are employed in our MultiLit programs.  The logistics around the human element of the exercise was the really challenging thing – we knew what to teach, and we did it. The students learned.  We got the results.

Some seven or so years later, we can now see a way of delivering effective and intensive instruction to the large numbers of students who need it. As a society, we will be judged, quite rightly, by our failures not our successes in the years to come. It is time to grab this tiger firmly by the tail.

Dr Robyn Wheldall (Beaman) is an Honorary Fellow of Macquarie University and is a director of MultiLit Pty Ltd. Email: robyn.wheldall@multilit.com

[Thanks to http://www.free-predator-pics.com for image.]

Preparing Pre-school Children for Learning to Read

If we are serious about ensuring that all children learn to read within their first few years of schooling, we should make sure that the basic building blocks of literacy are in place for all children when they begin formal schooling. The research shows clearly that children commencing school with both phonological awareness and well-developed general language skills are far more likely to learn to read easily and quickly. If all children were to receive a program of instruction in these essential pre-requisites in the year prior to commencing school, far fewer children would struggle to learn to read. It would also mean a levelling of the playing field so that all children, regardless of their family background, would be starting to learn to read from a more similar knowledge base. It is currently the case that many children from less advantaged home backgrounds beginning school are already way behind their more advantaged peers in these key pre-literacy skills.

The idea of teaching these skills to pre-school children may sound off-putting to some but there is no reason why these skills may not be taught effectively in an engaging and play-based way that is more appropriate for young children. An effective pre-literacy program for pre-school children should comprise instruction in the two key areas identified by research as the most important pre-requisite skills for learning to read. First, they should be engaged in games and play-based routines that teach systematically the skills of phonological awareness so that children come to school already able to break up words into their component sounds and to manipulate the sounds in words. The second key component is an emphasis on developing good oral language skills more generally, including explicit vocabulary instruction. The best means of achieving this is by structured storybook reading activities where children are encouraged to engage with the story being read, to answer questions about the story and to relate the events in the story to their own lives. A focus on these two prerequisite skill sets provides an excellent foundation for learning to read. This conceptualisation of what constitutes the best preparation for learning to read forms the basis for our new pre-school program, known as PreLit.

PreLit is an early literacy preparation program, designed to be delivered the year before children start formal schooling. It will also prove useful for teaching children who come to school without the necessary prerequisite skills in place. The purpose of the program is to lay the foundations for good phonological awareness and other language skills in young children, to facilitate literacy development in the early school years.  PreLit is particularly focused on improving the learning outcomes for those children considered at potential risk of long-term reading failure but will provide a good grounding in the key prerequisite skills for literacy for all children about to begin school. PreLit instruction is based on the findings of the accumulated research with this age group and will provide early childhood teachers with research-based teaching strategies and an effective model of delivery for the teaching of phonological awareness and oral language.  It is designed to complement a play-based learning environment through brief periods of daily instruction.