Too many young people leave school in Wales without being “functionally literate”, a damning new report says. This failing has significant social and economic impact on the nation, school inspectorate Estyn warned.
The Covid pandemic “unsurprisingly” had a negative impact on many pupils’ reading skills, Estyn’s report, Developing pupils’ English reading skills from 10 to 14 years of age, says. Although this is beginning to improve with the return of face to face teaching, reading gaps between the least well off and their wealthier peers has widened.
Findings in the report include:
- Wide variations in the reading skills of 10 to 14-year-olds remain across primary, secondary and all-age schools
- Most pupils in the first three years of secondary school don’t develop their reading skills well enough
- Only a few secondary schools successfully promote reading for pleasure
- Planning development of pupils’ skills, particularly reading skills, from the last year of primary to first year of secondary “is underdeveloped in nearly all schools across Wales”.
- Poor collaboration between Wales’ school improvement service consortia means the highest quality professional learning for reading skills isn’t available across Wales.
- Few secondaries and a minority of primaries have welcoming, accessible, well-stocked and supervised libraries.
- In many secondary schools, pupils use basic reading skills well, but only a minority develop advanced reading skills effectively.
- Reading skills worsened during the pandemic and even more so for the least well off children.
- A minority of primary and secondary school leaders monitor and evaluate the impact of reading strategies robustly enough.
- In many schools visited the negative impact of the pandemic on reading skills means teachers have to use strategies normally used with younger pupils when teaching older pupils.
