The ‘back-to-basics’
test of spelling, punctuation and grammar was first revealed almost two
years ago and met with much criticism from both teachers and unions. It
was sat by around 600,000 primary school students for the first time
this summer. The results, published this autumn, show that one in four
children are supposedly leaving primary school with poor standards of
literacy.
It would be useful to know this if we are assured of the validity of
the test. It would also be useful to know why the billions spent
flogging synthetic phonics to death in schools has failed to improve
literacy standards.
Debra Myhill, a professor of education at the University of Exeter
and a member of the national curriculum review team, was among experts
who originally raised concerns about the spelling and grammar (SPAG)
tests when consulted by the government.
Professor Myhill warned the government that it was wrong to test
children on grammar out of context and suggested that it would give a
false impression of their literacy skills.
She said: “I did a very detailed analysis of the test and I had major
reservations about it. I think it’s a really flawed test. The grammar
test is totally decontextualised. It just asks children to do particular
things, such as identifying a noun.”
In fact, she points out, 50 years of research have consistently shown
that there is no relationship between doing the kind of work demanded
in the test and what pupils do in their writing. It does not ask
students to use grammar in context, which means they are not able to
apply rules more generally. In other words, it’s a poor test of
literacy.
Part of the ‘logic’ backing the legitimacy of the test is this
statement from Lord Bew’s final report on educational assessment and
accountability: ‘We recognise that there are some elements of writing –
spelling, grammar, punctuation, vocabulary – where there are clear
‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers, which lend themselves to externally-marked
testing. A spelling test currently forms 14 per cent of the writing
test. Internationally, a number of jurisdictions conduct
externally-marked tests of spelling, punctuation and grammar (sometimes
termed ‘English language arts’). These are essential skills and we
recommend that externally-marked tests of spelling, punctuation, grammar
and vocabulary should be developed.’
As Michael Rosen points out so strongly, this is all completely
untrue. Spellings vary, as does grammatical usage and punctuation (the
report weirdly separates grammar from punctuation), according to context
and audience.
It is quite wrong to say that punctuation can only be done one way.
This is either a statement of ignorance or a lie. Publishing houses and
newspapers vary over the fine points of punctuation. To take one example
of many, there are no absolute rules for whether you use a comma or a
semi-colon in the middle of a sentence that has what are called two
parallel or main clauses - or indeed whether you can do it with a dash
or a full stop!
‘He grabbed his collar, he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all same.’
‘He grabbed his collar; he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’
‘He grabbed his collar - he knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’
‘He grabbed his collar. He knew it was a crazy thing to do but he did it all the same.’
Let’s be quite clear – these are all acceptable. They are all OK ways
to punctuate. There is no absolute single right or wrong way out of
these four possibilities.
Grammar is not an absolute set of fixed rules – it’s a set of loose
conventions for making meaning in a written format which helps text
approximate to spoken language. Breaking down the mechanics of how
language works is a complex task of linguistic analysis which codifies
patterns into seemingly fixed rules called Grammar. But in a living
language, it’s a very fluid and unstable system!
Asking children as young as ten and 11 to get involved in this type
of practice, where language is stripped of its context and purpose of
making meaning and deconstructed into simple rules, is the same sort of
mentality that has over-emphasised synthetic phonics as a way of
creating technical decoders rather than effective users and consumers
of written language.
It is something we shall be returning to. Watch this space.
