Literacy tests ‘misdiagnosing’ Maltese-speaking students

Students hailing from Maltese-speaking families may be at a disadvantage in literacy tests assessing their reading and comprehension abilities in English.

According to the study published in the Malta Review for Educational Studies, literacy tests currently used in schools are based on proficiency tests devised for English-speaking populations – and not for bilingual societies like Malta where a large section of the population, especially those attending state schools, speak Maltese at home.

These tests are used in schools to assess the individual educational needs of each child and thus determine which students need extra learning support assistance.

The study recommends that in the assessment of children’s reading and comprehension skills, assessors should give greater consideration to the “the influence of home language background.”

It also refers to previous studies which recommended a greater use of Maltese to help students comprehend English texts.

The study warns that the use of these tests can result in the “misdiagnoses of reading skill profiles” of the Maltese-speaking population of schoolchildren, which can lead to “inaccurate decision making” with regards to individualised school support and examination arrangements.

The study also shows that a significant segment of Maltese students, especially those attending State schools – most of which hail from Maltese-speaking families – can accurately read single words at a fast pace but still show poor understanding of what they are reading.

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On the other hand students hailing from English-speaking backgrounds tend to fare better in both reading skills and comprehension abilities.

The study was based on a sample of 224 students aged 7-14 years, who were submitted to the a widely-used test known as the Neale Analysis of Reading Comprehension. In this test students are asked to read six passages of varying levels of difficulty and length.

The sample consisted of two groups of students coming from different home backgrounds: 54.5% of participants hailing from State schools were students who come from a mainly Maltese-speaking home language background, and 45.5% from an independent school.

Only six of the 122 state school students participating in the study spoke English at home while only 21 of the 102 private independent school students spoke Maltese as the main language at home.

The students had to read each passage aloud. The examiner also asked them a set of questions about the text which the students had to answer orally.

The students’ performance yielded three separate scores: a reading accuracy score depending on the number of errors made while reading aloud; a reading rate score depending on the time taken to read each passage; and a reading comprehension score depending on the number of correct answers given to the oral questions for each passage.

The results showed that younger students attending Year 5 and Year 6, including State school students tend to be as proficient in reading as British students for whom these tests are designed.

Those attending independent schools performed above the British average. But as they grow older Maltese students tend to fall behind when compared to their British peers.

Moreover, even at the older level Maltese students perform better in reading accuracy and pace than in comprehension skills.

And State school students showed little improvement in both reading and comprehension scores as they grew older and progressed to secondary school. Describing this finding as “worrisome” factor, the study attributes the lack of improvement to the fact that teachers at secondary level dedicate less time to word reading, even though words become more sophisticated than in the primary years. This may further weaken the ability of students to decode the English language.

The study was authored by University of Malta lecturers Louisa Grech, Paul Bartolo and Liberato Camilleri and by John Everatt from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.