Fischer Family Trust calls for reading fluency to be a national priority for white working-class pupils
By FFT Education
The publication of the Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes is a vital step in tackling one of the most persistent challenges in education policy – importantly though, it also points to a practical priority for action: reading fluency.
At the Fischer Family Trust, we welcome the Inquiry’s focus on reading fluency as a national priority and our own data demonstrates why this should matter for policymakers and school leaders across the country. Our response to the Inquiry’s report was featured in an article for The Guardian.
So we would certainly expect to see a peak in school absence rates over the last week. In this post, we dig into data from around 10,000 schools subscribed to FFT Attendance Tracker to look at how big that peak was, and how much of it was due to school closures.
FFT’s Reading Assessment Programme shows that white disadvantaged pupils have lower reading fluency throughout primary school, with the gap remaining large and consistent from Year 1 to Year 6. Crucially, this gap remains during KS2.
By the start of KS2, the challenge is already clear. In Year 3, around two in three white disadvantaged pupils have poor reading fluency, compared with around one in two non-disadvantaged pupils.
Thereafter, at the end of primary school, the gap has not disappeared – in Year 6, one in three white disadvantaged pupils still have poor reading fluency, compared with one in five non-disadvantaged pupils
This is vital as without proper reading fluency skills, pupils cannot access the curriculum – they are less able to engage confidently with the texts, questions and subject knowledge they encounter across school life.
Interestingly, this is not primarily a gender issue. FFT’s data shows that white disadvantaged boys and girls have broadly similar reading fluency outcomes by Year 6, with 66% of boys and 68% of girls reaching the expected standard.
While the national focus on phonics has been welcome, learning to decode is not learning to read and simply too many pupils are progressing into secondary school without the adequate fluency skills.
As Paul Charman, Managing Director at FFT, said:
“The most striking finding isn’t that white disadvantaged pupils have lower reading fluency, but that the gap between them and their non-disadvantaged peers does not decrease at all during the time they spend at primary school.
A third of white disadvantaged pupils are leaving primary school without secure reading fluency. This should concern anyone interested in improving educational outcomes and narrowing disadvantage gaps.
Reading fluency is fundamental to success in school. When pupils can read accurately and confidently, they are better able to access the full curriculum and engage successfully with learning across all subjects. When they can’t, it is no wonder that they become disengaged and increasingly absent from education.
Our findings enforce the Inquiry’s conclusion that reading fluency deserves greater attention. If we are serious about improving outcomes for this group, we need a sustained focus on this.”
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