Stronger literacy push after exam decline

A targeted summer literacy programme is delivering early gains for primary school leavers flagged in this year’s Common Entrance results, as education officials respond to a sharp fall in English scores and concerns about readiness for secondary school.

Reading proficiency was brought into focus at the Ministry of Education Transformation’s Summer Learning Pod, where educators are working to strengthen the literacy skills of students preparing to enter secondary school following concerns over declining English performance.

The Summer Learning Pod at Westbury Primary School under the National Literacy Programme is providing intensive literacy intervention to 70 students aged 11 to 13 who demonstrated critical literacy needs in the recent examination. The programme, which ends on Friday, uses the evidence-based Lindamood-Bell Seeing Stars and visualising and verbalising programmes to improve reading, spelling and comprehension through small-group instruction.

It combines two structured literacy approaches: Seeing Stars focuses on helping students recognise and spell words by developing mental images of letters within words, while visualising and verbalising strengthens reading and listening comprehension by teaching students to create mental images of what they read before explaining it in their own words.

The initiative follows the disclosure that the national mean in English fell from 72.5 in 2025 to 64.2 this year, with weaknesses in grammar, vocabulary, comprehension and understanding expository texts likely to affect students as they transition to secondary school.

Project consultant Isabel Medellin said the programme is already producing measurable improvements, pointing to one student’s rapid progress after less than three weeks of instruction:

“So that student Jayden, when he first was evaluated to basically determine his grouping within Lindamood-Bell, he came to us with very low reading foundations. He was testing at around that first-grade level, working on smaller words.”

She explained that his lessons initially focused on simple one-syllable words:

“When we first began his instruction, he was working on words with, you know, single syllables, two or three sounds. So words like ‘cat’ or ‘boat’.”

According to Medellin, Jayden has since made significant gains after being observed reading aloud to Lee Carter, a peripatetic teacher support officer.

“So now he’s working on two-syllable words. He is reading passages with more complex single-syllable and two-syllable words. He’s increasing his sight word recognition, and his confidence has increased so much.”

She added that his confidence in the classroom has grown alongside his reading ability:

“He is always raising his hand to answer the questions, and it’s been really great to see that within just barely three weeks, he has gone from, you know, struggling to decode words at two or three letters to now he can take on two-syllable words and decode them back to back.”

Students receive daily instruction in small groups at a ratio of one instructor to five students, with lessons tailored to individual needs. Progress is measured through pre- and post-programme assessments, while free transport and daily lunches are provided to remove barriers to participation.

(LE)