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Students reap focus on reading

Hilton Primary School year 3 students Pritika Baptist, Zoe Macfarlane-Reid, Jordan Halil and Yannic Lichtenzveig. Picture: Dione Davidson/The West Australian

Even though many children at Hilton Primary School come from disadvantaged backgrounds, its Year 5 students improved their reading results so much last year that most of them finished above Year 7 students in similar schools.

Hilton features as one of WA's improving schools on the national My School website that was updated yesterday with the results of last year's National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy tests.

Principal Graeme Thorpe said the school introduced two- hour literacy blocks and explicit teaching for all year levels two years ago.

It had also rolled out iPads on a ratio of one to every two students so children in the same class could work at different ability levels.

Hilton's Years 3 and 5 students were well above similar schools for numeracy and its Years 3, 5 and 7 students were all above similar schools for reading. Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chairman Barry McGaw said it had improved the way the My School website calculated the Index of Community Socio-Educational Advantage for schools by using information on family backgrounds. The ICSEA allows schools of similar disadvantage levels to be compared.