Results published last week showed that 58 per cent of pupils reached the required standard in the 2012 phonics screening check, with no difference in the pass rate between bilingual learners and first language English speakers. All 235,000 children who failed to reach the required standard will receive additional support with their reading in Year 2.
In an article in the Times Educational Supplement (05.10.12), Nicola Davies from NALDIC outlined our concerns that EAL specific development work in schools may be displaced by a narrow focus on phonics and that this may distract schools from providing the EAL teaching over time which bilingual pupils need.
What was apparent in the test results was the level of regional variation. In many areas, for example Leicester, Reading and Slough, a higher proportion of bilingual learners scored the required 32 out of 40 than English mother tongue learners.
There is still limited research specifically on the effectiveness of synthetic phonics with bilingual children but broadly speaking the consensus is that whilst synthetic phonics teaching and the development of phonological awareness will contribute to bilingual learners’ English reading development, this should not supplant EAL language development work. The ability to decode, a skill which many EAL learners develop rapidly, is often not accompanied by the comprehension skills necessary for achievement within the educational system. A 2008 research review on synthetic phonics and EAL learners noted that 'a sample of research studies relating to second language young learners indicated that although word recognition and word identification was enhanced in all of the included studies, the effects on comprehension were not statistically significant'.
