Tackling disappointing results for reading comprehension is a long-term task. This primary school, which decided to focus on it about five years ago, proves this.
Half hidden between the fields of Borchtlombeek, a district of Roosdaal in the Pajottenland, lies the Free Primary School Sint Amandus. There is only one approach road to the school, so when the bell rings on Wednesday afternoon it is immediately queuing in the direction of the Steenweg.
Although the crowds under a cautious spring sun may be just that little bit bigger this time, due to the enthusiasm with which the students walk out of the school gate: after all, this is the start of an extended weekend. The plans for this vary, from a family visit to a weekend away with the parents, as evidenced by the packed car with which some are picked up.
But the chance that many students will open a book in the coming days is rather small.
That is what the international comparative PIRLS study that was published on Tuesday learned. Not only did the level of reading comprehension among Flemish ten-year-olds drop to a now questionable level, nowhere in Europe do parents appear to encourage their children to read so little.
At Sint Amandus they were not shocked by those results. Five years ago they conducted a survey about the reading environment of children at home. They are unable and unwilling to give specific figures for privacy reasons, but the number of pupils who are never read to at home is close to the percentage from PIRLS: 9 percent.
The survey heralded the start of a campaign to focus more on reading comprehension. However, the scores for reading in the school were quite good. The school knows this through the annual interdiocesan tests of the dome, but also thanks to PIRLS. Sint Amandus took part in the international study in 2016 and achieved a decent score.
And yet, teachers felt in recent years that reading comprehension among students was deteriorating. “Sometimes it’s also laziness”, says Mathias Verhasselt (28) of the sixth grade. “We notice that students, for example, see a math problem and almost immediately think they know what to do without reading the question properly. They make mistakes because they don’t understand the assignment properly.”
In short, even here, in this school between the fields where there are few children from underprivileged families and foreign languages are not common – two things that often go hand in hand with lower reading results – teachers notice that reading is becoming more and more difficult. So reading became a priority, even if it is sometimes at the expense of other subjects such as musical education, world orientation or traffic.
Annual theme
Sint Amandus works around a different theme every year. “At the start of the school year, you always look forward to which banner hangs above the school gate to know what the theme will be this year,” says eleven-year-old Thibault. “Reading is dreaming with your eyes open”, hangs there this year.
Thibault and his classmates admit they were a little disappointed when they saw that – last year it was about trees. “’What kind of boring theme is that?’, I thought in the beginning”, says Lore (11). “Although it has made me realize that reading can be fun.”
Lore sticks to comics. Her friend Lara (12) likes to read as long as there is “an emotional story, like fairy tales”. And Thibault? He discovered through the school library after the birth of his sister that he likes informative books. “I wanted to know how the human body works,” he says.
The school tries to make students enthusiastic about the written word in various ways. Every first quarter of an hour after noon, students have to read here (and briefly write something about it in their notebook). Even though it costs them a lot of money to go to the library by bus every time, the school and parent association that help them consciously choose to continue to do so on a regular basis. In addition, they installed two reading cabinets on the playground containing books and comics. This way, students can take a book whenever they want during playtime.
Book Fair
Parents also tried to get the school involved, for example by organizing a book fair, where two children’s authors came to read aloud. That was a success, in contrast to the information evening that teachers organized to explain to parents the usefulness of reading aloud. “That was a disappointment,” says care teacher Lieve Van de Perre (57). “There were more teachers than parents.”
“Although it is not enough just to focus on reading motivation and pleasure,” says director Anne Saerens (57). “It should not become fun pedagogy. Children must also learn to read technically and comprehensibly.” In concrete terms, the school took a critical look at the method with which it taught students to read and decided to switch to a different method of teaching.
“It is indeed a both-and-story: and provide more good instruction, and get the environment to read, and give more time to reading,” says Astrid Geudens, researcher in language and reading didactics (Thomas More). “We see that there are currently many actions aimed at creating a good reading environment – which is also important. But sometimes teachers lose focus because of this, namely that everything starts with the instruction and being able to read well.”
That such a thing takes time, they prove here on Sint Amandus. Five years ago they decided to focus more on reading. Corona slowed everything down, but the search for a new reading method alone took them two years. We kept pushing, trusting and sometimes even hoping that the choices that were made will translate into good scores on (comparative) tests in a few years’ time.
In short, even if there is a different annual theme next school year, the focus on reading should not disappear. “In fact, however well-intentioned it may be, reading cannot actually be a theme: it is the basis of everything,” says Geudens. “That will be the big challenge: don’t let go and keep going,” says Saerens. “This must remain our top priority. Otherwise it’s back to square one.”
