The “negative impact of the Covid-19 pandemic remains clear on the standard of pupils’ Welsh reading skills”, education watchdogs have said, as Wales battles to meet its target of a million Welsh speakers by 2050.

A report published by Estyn warns that “many pupils’ reading skills have suffered as a result of the pandemic” and said that while work is ongoing, more is needed to done to develop Welsh reading skills across schools in Wales.

Estyn’s report, ’Developing pupils’ Welsh reading skills from 10-14 years of age’, highlights that the “negative impact of the pandemic remains clear on the standard of pupils’ Welsh reading skills in general, with some pupils having lost the confidence to communicate and read in Welsh.”

The report shows that “wide variations in the reading skills of 10 to 14-year-olds remain both within and across primary, secondary and all-age schools.”

The report outlines: “Whilst leaders in nearly all schools visited recognised the importance of prioritising the development of pupils' reading skills, often this didn't translate into effective provision across the curriculum, particularly in the secondary sector.

“Coordinating provision to develop pupils’ reading skills was in its early stages in a majority of secondary schools.

“Leaders in a minority of primary schools and a majority of secondary and all-age schools did not use a wide enough range of evidence to identify the exact aspects that need to be improved and plan relevant actions.

“They were over-reliant on data only, rather than combining it with first-hand evidence of pupils’ progress from lessons and books.

“Only a minority of leaders monitored and evaluated the effect of reading strategies across the school robustly enough.

“There were very few reading schemes or platforms available through the medium of Welsh compared to English to help schools to monitor pupils’ progress in reading.”

The report findings show that the most beneficial opportunities to develop reading skills could be seen in Welsh lessons or language sessions and within the humanities subjects.

Many primary schools and a few secondary schools promoted reading for pleasure successfully. However, overall, experiences to promote reading outside of the classroom were seen to have decreased significantly since the pandemic, particularly in the secondary sector. 

“Our findings show that very few clusters of primary and secondary schools planned together effectively to develop pupils’ reading skills from Year 6 to Year 7,” the report said.

“This was also the case in many all-age schools, which teach pupils from both the primary and secondary phases.

“Many primary schools and a few secondary schools promoted reading for pleasure successfully. “However, overall, experiences to promote reading outside the classroom were seen to have decreased significantly since the pandemic, particularly in the secondary sector.”

Estyn did praise the new immersion units and Welsh language centres used for developing the Welsh skills of pupils who transfer from English medium- education at a late stage, including the units in Gwynedd.

“The Gwynedd Immersion Units (one of which is located on the site of Ysgol Bro Idris in Dolgellau) use reading effectively as one of the main immersion strategies to learn by rote and model language patterns,” the report said.

“The use of reading is essential within the language units and in the immersion structures used. “Patterns and vocabulary are visual and reading is used as a basis for gesture work and acts as a central part of immersion.

“Teachers model everyday language through the use of repeated dialogues which enable pupils to recognise patterns and sentence structures.

“By reading and learning dialogues by rote, pupils experience success by being able to perform the dialogue, which boosts confidence and pride.”

Another example of good practice was found by Estyn at Ysgol Henry Richard in Tregaron at their school library Y Pen Dwfn – named by a pupil as it stands on the site of the deep end of the former swimming pool.

“The ‘library officers’, who are pupils at the school, requested books and contributions from the public and this was a great success,” the report said.

“These officers work with specialists from Ceredigion Libraries to organise and categorise the books. “These officers continue to develop the area to promote reading for pleasure and a positive reading culture.”

A new Welsh and English Reading Record has also been developed at the school to “collect all of the books the pupils have read throughout the year to give purpose and aim to the reading and develop a sense of ownership.”

However, despite the success in Tregaron, “a number of secondary schools had converted their libraries into classrooms due to lack of space,” Estyn said, while “others had closed their libraries due to lack of funding to be able to purchase and update their depository of materials and appropriate staffing to take care of the resource.”

Schools in Gwynedd, however, make “effective use of the support of the Gwynedd Library Service to secure additional funds for the school to purchase resources,” the report added.

Overall, the report findings say, most primary and secondary pupils preferred to read English books. “The main reasons for this were the unfamiliar vocabulary and dialect and the lack of choice of interesting subjects in Welsh,” Estyn found.

Reading is a key part of learning and using language, and last year a drop in the number of people who say they could speak, write and understand Welsh was also blamed by Welsh Government officials on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 2021 census showed a 5.7 per cent drop in the number of school-age children able to speak Welsh since 2011 despite the number of pupils in Welsh-medium education rising by 11,000 over the same period.

The Welsh government has ambitious plans to increase the number of speakers to one million by 2050, but latest data shows that 538,000 could speak it in 2021 – 17.8 per cent of the population – a fall from the 562,000 reporting they could speak it in 2011.

In 2011, 168,000 school-age children were recorded as being able to speak Welsh, which fell to 146,000 in 2021.

That fall was despite the number of pupils in schools where Welsh is taught as a first language rising from 85,325 to 95,120, with many others in bilingual schools.

A push towards changing foundation phase education in primary schools has seen moves being made in the Aberystwyth area by Ceredigion County Council despite the concerns of parents.

With lockdowns and learning from home in place as the country battled Covid between March 2020 and December 2021 - when census data was collected – the Welsh Government said it could have affected parents' confidence in classing children as Welsh-speaking.

"Children were out of school and it may be that we are seeing this concern reflected in the way they reported their children's ability in Welsh," a Welsh government spokesman said.

And with the latest report from Estyn suggesting that the pandemic has affected the abilities of pupils to develop their Welsh reading skills, more will need to be done if Welsh Government targets are to be hit by 2050.

Research by Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities last year found that some school children felt that their Welsh-language skills were “on pause” during the Covid pandemic.

The research explored the experiences of learners in Welsh-medium education who were from non-Welsh speaking families, and the perceptions of their parents during the public health emergency, particularly in the transition from primary to secondary school.

As part of the study, pupils and their families were interviewed about their experiences of home learning during Covid.

In the report, the research team quote one pupil, whose words they felt described the general experiences of all the families interviewed, and highlighted the lack of opportunity to engage actively and use the Welsh language during lockdown: “In my opinion it (developing Welsh language skills) was a bit on pause... we didn’t really use it that much.”

Dr Siân Lloyd Williams, Lecturer in Education at Aberystwyth University and one of the lead investigators said: “It is well known that the Covid-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and school closures, caused significant upheaval to people’s lives.

“Previous research has shown that the lack of exposure to the Welsh language during the pandemic was particularly problematic for pupils who attended Welsh-medium schools, but lived in a home where the primary language was a language other than Welsh.

“Our research gathered the views and pandemic experiences of such pupils and their parents, to determine the impact that the lack of exposure to Welsh and fewer opportunities to use the language, had on the pupils’ Welsh language skills.”

Findings from that research identified the “value of strengthening the links between primary and secondary settings to ease the transition process.”

Findings also “underlined the importance of assessing pupils’ Welsh language skills between key stages - for example, when transitioning from primary to secondary school – to identify any support required.”

Estyn’s report found that “overall, opportunities to develop advanced reading skills across the curriculum and, in particular, outside Welsh lessons, are weak.”

“In these cases, planning is not careful enough to ensure that pupils make progress in their reading skills and there is often a lack of challenge in tasks,” Estyn said.

“For example, teachers plan many simple tasks, such as repeated and closed reading comprehension, fill the blanks or annotation and quizzes or wordsearches.

“These are tasks that keep pupils busy and quiet, rather than tasks that improve their understanding and skills.”

Most primary schools and around half of the secondary schools in the sample indicated that they had invested in at least one published reading scheme or platform, the report said, but that the Welsh-medium offer was “limited”.

“Our findings from visits and our recent inspection reports show that a minority of primary schools and a majority of secondary and all-age schools do not have a clear enough picture of what needs to be done to strengthen pupils’ reading skills,” the report says.

“The work of co-ordinating reading has begun to develop in a majority of secondary schools since the lockdown periods.

“Overall, provision to develop pupils’ reading skills is not planned cohesively enough across the curriculum to ensure appropriate progress in learning.

“As a result, pupils are not given meaningful enough opportunities to develop their reading skills across the curriculum.”

Owen Evans, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, said: “It is unsurprising that we are still seeing the negative impact of the pandemic on the standard of pupils’ Welsh reading skills but our new report highlights good practice from schools and offers a number of suggestions and practical toolkits to support teachers in developing pupils’ Welsh reading skills.

"There are clear opportunities to improve how clusters of schools can work together to effectively develop pupils’ reading skills and create more purposeful opportunities to develop Welsh reading skills across the curriculum.

“Improving the standard of pupils’ reading skills is a national priority and we hope this report will support schools to plan strategically and structure opportunities to increase pupils’ interest, resilience and confidence when reading in Welsh.”

The report presents a number of recommendations for school leaders, local authorities and Welsh Government.

The inspectorate recommends that schools strengthen opportunities for pupils to develop a variety of reading skills in subjects across the curriculum in addition to Welsh, as well “plan strategically and structure opportunities appropriately to increase pupils’ interest, resilience and confidence when reading in Welsh.”

Local authorities should consider how to “facilitate transition arrangements between primary and secondary schools and remove any barriers to ensure that schools are able to work together beneficially to develop pupils’ reading skills,” inspectors said.

The Welsh Government should consider how to “create opportunities for Welsh authors to engage with schools and talk to pupils about the type of books they would like to read in Welsh,” and “work with partners to improve and increase the availability of Welsh-medium resources, including non-fiction books.”

The report was written after a request for advice from the Minister for Education and the Welsh Language last year.