Level of language competences formation: developing primary literacy in the first grade

The basic, functional and comprehensive literacies as competences in the subject of Bulgarian Language and Literature form the foundation of reading literacy. [Ordinance 5, 2015:48] Learning the Bulgarian literary language is compulsory for all children and students taught in the system of pre-school and school education. [Ordinance 6,2016:40] This is related to reguirements for spoken and written discourse which begin to be fulfilled synchronically as early as the period of giving literacy to all students «regardless of their ethnic and/or religious identity, regardless of their cultural difference» [Ivanova / Иванова 2010:14].

Primary Literacy is a prereguisite for carrying out the unified linguistic and literary educational process, for developing students’ intellect and speech. It allows learning the technigues for reading and writing in unity with understanding what is read and written. To establish the level of competencies in Bulgarian language and literature in the period of developing primary literacy, in May-April 2017, two versions of didactic tests in Bulgarian language and literature for the first grade were constructed, approbated and conducted.

These tools allow one to establish to what an extent or degree the pupils in the first grade have mastered the phonetic composition of the word and the reading and writing habits as well as to what an extent they can absorb new educational information in accordance with the learning material covered.Their purpose is to establish the presence of difficulties in mastering the learning material in the period of developing primary literacy in order to take timely steps for its absorption. [Bankov/ Банков 2012:61]

Each version of the didactic tests contains eight guestions - six close-ended and two open-ended. The close-ended guestions have three possible answers - one correct and two distractors. In the other two guestions the testees construct their answers on their own: in one of them verbally (in writing, by arranging jumbled words into a sentence) and in the other non-verbally (by colouring the sound model of a word). Each guestion is correlatively related to one or several expected results laid down as knowledge, skills and attitudes in the Bulgarian language and literature curriculum for the first grade. [Curriculum 2016] The guestions are tailored to the abilities and interests of students in the first grade.

The first version is entitled «The Big Bad Wolf».The first three guestions in it are related to a text, part of the Bulgarian folktale «The Big Bad Wolf-a Shepherd».

The first guestion reguires the students to determine how many sentences there are in the specific text. The correct answer is: c) 7, and the distractors are: a) 1 and b) J.This task tests students’ abilities to delimit the language units: word and sentence and to identify the boundaries of a sentence in a text.

Whether they can delimit the language units: word and sentence is established through the second guestion: «How many words are there in the first sentence?» The correct answer expected from the students is c) 7, and the distractors are: a) 3 and b) 6.

The first two guestions reguire delimitation of the language units: word, sentence and text but they also test the abilities of first grad students in the area of «Numbers» from the mathematical competency in accordance with the state educational standard for general education training.

«Who did the Big Bad Wolf decide to lie to according to the text?» tests whether the students understand the meaning of what they have read. The correct answer is: a) the little shepherd, and the distractors - b) the dog and c) the flock.

The fourth guestion establishes to what an extent the students can delimit the syllables in the word in order to carry over parts of words correctly to the next line. It reguires children to choose the word separated correctly: b) теле-/фон, instead of the distractors: а) та-/блет и с) комп-/ютър.

The fifth guestion asks students to read the task carefully and to indicate the wrongly spelt word sum in option «Ь». The distractors show the correctly spelt words зид (a) and cum (c).

For the sixth guestion, the students need coloured pencils. In it, they should make a sound model of the word «ЧИТАНКА» on their own in order to show their ability to recognize vowels and consonants.

Whether first grade students can write «йо», «ьо» and «ю» in words correctly, is checked by the seventh guestion, where they should choose the correct answer a) do to complete the name to ЗАЙО БАЙ О (Little Bunny). The answers b) ьо and с) ю are wrong.

The eight guestion allows to establish whether the students can make different sentences according to their purpose depending on the communicative situation, to connect the words in the sentence correctly, to form graphically correctly the beginning and end of the sentence and to put the correct punctuation mark for the end of a sentence (in this case full stop). Using the given jumbled words, the first-grade students have the task to make the sentence «The Hedgehog has his birthday.»

Another character well-known to the children accompanies them in doing the second test: The Fox. The text they are expected to read, which the first three guestions from the test are related to, is part of Ran Bosilek’s tale «On a Visit».

Whetherthe children can delimit the language unit sentence and identify its boundaries in the text is checked with the first guestion, where the correct answer is that the text contains 6 sentences (option «с»). The wrong answers that the first-grade students can choose are: a) 1 and b) 4.

The second guestion establishes the ability of children to delimit the language units: word and sentence. It expects students to find out that in the first sentence there are seven words (option «с»). The distractors are: a) 4 and b) 5.

In guestion 5, the students must choose the fullest correct answer to the guestion «Why the Fox left the Stork’s home hungry?» namely because «The Fox’s muzzle would not go into the narrow mouth of the pot.» (option «c»).The distractors: a) The Stork offered him milk and b) The Stork poured the milk into a pot with a narrow mouth are correct according to the text but not full.This guestion establishes whether the students understand the meaning of what they have read.

Whether first-grade students can delimit the syllables in the word to carryover parts of words correctly to next line is checked by guestion 4, which expects children to choose the word carried over wrongly: b) пе-/я instead of the distractors: а) пе-/сен and с) музи-/ка.

The ability of students to differentiate the sounds «дж», «ч» and «ж» and their correct spelling in the word is checked by the fifth guestion, where they must indicate that the word spelt wrongly is с) жип and а) джип and с) чип are spelt correctly.

The sixth guestion reguires the students to make a sound model of the word «БУКВАР» in order to show their ability to recognize vowels and consonants.

Whether children can differentiate the sounds «йо», «ьо» and «ю» and spell them correctly in words is established through the seventh guestion. In it, they must choose the correct answer а) йо in the word МАЙОНЕЗА.The answers b) ьо and с) ю are distractors.

The eight guestion checks whether the students can make sentences of various purposes depending on the communicative situation, to connect the words in the sentence correctly, to form graphically correctly the beginning and end of the sentence and to put the correct punctuation mark for the end of a sentence (in this case guestion mark). Using the given jumbled words, the first-grade students have the task to make the sentence «Is this beautiful flower a rose?» or «This beautiful flower, is it a rose?»

The didactic test was conducted in 25 schools from 21 settlements in 15 municipalities from 10 districts in the Republic of Bulgaria. 505 children were tested of which 520 are representatives of the ethnic minorities. Of them, 279 are bearers of a mother tongue other than Bulgarian. Each student completes both versions of the didactic tests on different days in the month of April 2017, after the period of developing literacy in all schools has already ended.

The comparative analysis of the results of the children tested was executed according to the following three criteria: 1.) by district; 2.) by type of settlement; 5.) depending on whether the students are taught in the conditions of a monocultural or multicultural environment.

Comparative analysis of the results by district

The study was conducted with 505 first-grade students from schools in the districts of Burgas (55 students), Varna (14 students), Vidin (7 students), Vratsa (51 students), Dobrich (70 students), Kardzhali (7 students), Lovech (59 students), Plovdiv (55 students), Sofia City (185 students) and Shumen (46 students).

What impresses in the first guestion from the test «The Big Bad Wolf», which reguires delimitation of the language unit sentence within a text, is that the predominant answer of the students is the correct one - option «с» indicated by 568 students. Only with the first-grade students from the district of Dobrich, we can observe an overriding indication of the distractor from option «Ь» (27 students). For comparison, only 15 students indicated the correct answer «с» and 11 students indicated the answer «a».Another interesting result is of a district for the North-eastern part of the country, Shumen, where 24 students indicated the correct answer «с» and 16 students - the distractor from option «Ь». Although the correct answer predominates among the students from the district of Lovech (25 students), a big percentage of them did not indicate any answer at all (28%). 9.80% of the first-grade students in Vratsa choose all possible answers. Just as many did not choose any one of the options. The indication of distractors, of all possible answers and the lack of answers in the remaining districts is comparatively less freguent.

When conducting the second version of the test, an interesting fact was registered about the students, which can be considered a tendency towards their doing better. The correct answers of the children are 595. What impresses is that the students from the district of Dobrich already overridingly indicate the correct answer - «с» (90%). There is also a tendency towards the decrease of indicating distractors with the first-grade student from the district of Shumen. In the district of Sofia City, with the second version of the test, an increased indication of distractors - option «а» (12%) and option «Ь» (5%) is noted. In the district of Lovech, again, most of the students chose the correct answer but 14 of them (56%) did not indicate any one of the options.

The results on the second guestion from the test «The Big Bad Wolf» show that once again the students did not find any difficulty and achieved very high results. The pass-rate is 75%. We can sum up that in all districts an overriding indication of the correct answer is observed. First-grade students indicate the distractors comparatively rarely and, by districts, the percentage of the freguency of choice of wrong answers is the following: Burgas («а» -15%, «Ь» - 8%), Varna («Ь» - 28,57%), Vidin («Ь» - 14%),Vratsa («а» - 4%, «Ь» - 10%), Dobrich («а» - 5%, «Ь» - 29%), Lovech («Ь» - 28%), Kardzhali («Ь» - 29%), Plovdiv («Ь» - 6%), Sofia («а» - 1%; «Ь» - 5%) and Shumen («а»- 2%, «Ь» - 50%). The students indicate more than one answer comparatively rarely and in most cases of indicating two options, one of them is the correct answer. Unlike the situation with the first guestion, none of the students from the district of Lovech indicated none of the answers suggested.

Likewise, higher results are achieved by the students on the second guestion of the didactic test «The Fox».The pass-rate is already 85%. It can be summed up that by districts, the percentage of indicating the correct answer is the following: Burgas - 85%, Varna -50%,Vidin - 71%,Vratsa - 84%, Dobrich - 77%, Lovech - 79%, Kardzahli -71%, Plovdiv- 97%, Sofia City - 89%, Shumen - 67%. An exception about the achievements of the first-grade students on this guestion is registered solely with the tested first-grade students from the district of Varna - only 7 of the students indicated the correct answer and just as many did not indicate any possible answer. Results are the highest in the district of Plovdiv, where only one of the students indicated the correct answer, together with one of the distractors -option «Ь».

Summary: In all districts, we can observe relatively similar results between the first and the second guestion of each of the two didactic tests. The second version has a higher degree of complexity (the text which student must orientate themselves in has a bigger volume) but the results of the students with both tasks for delimiting the language units is higher as compared to the first version. It can be supposed that the reason for such results is that the test guestions are already known to the children, hence the better results. Therefore, it is advisable to give students more tasks of this type.

The task of the type «reading comprehension» in guestion No. 5 related to the text of the folktale «The Big Bad Wolf - a Shepherd» does not pose any difficulty to students. Results above the average level are shown by the tested first-grade students from the districts of Burgas (74%), Varna (79%), Vidin (86%),Vratsa (67%), Dobrich (81%), Lovech (59%), Plovdiv (89%), Sofia City (90%) and Shumen (65%). According to the results registered, it was established that the highest pass-rate belongs to the students from the district of Sofia City (165 of 185 students answered correctly, 9 students indicated distractors and 9 students did not indicate any one of the suggested answer options).The lowest is the result of the students from the district of Kardzhali, where the percentage of correct answers chosen is 45 (4 of 7 students indicate the distractor in option «b»).

The version «The Fox» posed considerable difficulty for the students in this guestion. The results near the average level (56%). Out of 504 students tested, only 285 understood the meaning of what they read and chose the correct answer. Results above the average level are shown by the first-grade students tested from the districts of Burgas (55%), Vidin (71%), Vratsa (65%), Plovdiv (74%) and Sofia City (66%). Out of them, the students from the district of Plovdiv did best - 26 of 55 children indicated the correct answer. The lowest results are shown by the first-grade students in Kardzahli (14%), Lovech (51%), Shumen (45%), Dobrich (45%) and Varna (50%). Just as in guestion 2 of the same version, 7 of the students indicated the correct answer, and the remaining 7 did not indicate any possible answer.

In guestion 4 of the test «The Big Bad Wolf», more than 50% of the tested students in the districts of Burgas, Varna, Vratsa, Dobrich, Plovdiv and Sofia City have the ability to delimit the syllables in a word in order to carry over part of it. 25 of 46 students in the district of Shumen indicated the correct answer and 12 - the distractor in option «а». Below the average level are the results of the first-grade students in the districts of Kardzahli (29%), Lovech (55%) and Vidin (45%). Out of 505 students tested, 55% indicated the correct answer.

A considerably higher result is achieved by the students tested in solving the second version of the test - 71%, although the task presupposes careful thinking and indicating the word carried over wrongly. Results above the average level are shown by the first-grade students from the districts: Burgas (75), Vratsa (65%), Dobrich (66,67), Lovech (62%), Plovdiv (91%), Sofia City (85%) and Shumen (61%). The smallest number of correct answers was indicated in the tested schools from the districts: Varna (1 student), Vidin (5 students) and Kardzhali (2 students).

The spelling of words containing at their beginning and end the correlative sound pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants «з» - «с» and «д» - «т» is tested through guestion 5 in the didactic test «The Big Bad Wolf». Results above 50% were achieved in the districts: Burgas, Varna, Vratsa, Lovech, Plovdiv and Sofia City. In the schools in the districts: Vidin, Dobrich, Kardzahli, Shumen, a level below the average was achieved, the lowest results shown by the students from the district of Shumen (26%).

A tendency towards better results is noted again in the solution of tasks of a similar type in the second version, which checks the ability of students to differentiate the sounds «дж», «ч» and «ж» spell them correctly in a word. The results of the student from Varna and Kardzhali are identical to those from the test «The Big Bad Wolf». Lower results are shown only by the students from the district of Vrasta, where 15 students did not indicate any answer to the guestion. In all other districts, a progressive increase of the correct answers indicated is observed.

Question 6 in both versions of the didactic tests allows to check the students’ability to recognize vowels and consonants. Both in the test «The Big Bad Wolf» and in the test «The Fox», the students in the districts of Varna, Dobrich, Lovech, Plovdiv and Sofia City cope with the task. Results below the average level were shown in the schools from the district of Burgas, Vidin, Vratsa, Kardzahli and Shumen.

Related to the spelling of words containing «йо», «ьо» and «ю» are the subguestions of guestion seven in the tests «The Big Bad Wolf” and «The Fox».

In the first version, the students from all the schools studied show a result below the average and the general level of results is 74%. A result below the average level, is noted only among the first-grade students from the district of Vidin, where only 1 of 7 students indicated the correct answer.

Considerably high results are registered for guestion 7 in the test «The Fox» - 77%. Unlike the test «The Big Bad Wolf», the greater part of the students from the district of Vidin indicated the correct answer. The lowest results belong to the first-grades students from the district of Kardzhali 29%) - the only district with results below the average.

The ability of students to make sentences of various purposes depending on the communicative situation is tested through guestion eight of the didactic test «The Big Bad Wolf». It was established that 19% of the students tested do not cope with the guestion. 47% of them can connect the words in a sentence correctly, 48% form graphically correctly the beginning and end of a sentence and 45% put the correct punctuation mark at the end of a sentence (full stop).

In guestion eight from the test «The Fox», low results are registered again, namely 25% of the student tested did not cope with the task. 40% of the students can connect the words in a sentence correctly, while 49% can form graphically correctly the beginning and end of a sentence, and 48% put the correct punctuation mark at the end of a sentence (full stop).

Comparative analysis of the results by type of settlement

Does the type of settlement influence the guality of education and more specifically the level of formation of language competences?

The students tested are distributed as follows: in villages (224 students), municipal centres (59 students), district centres (59 students) or in the capital city (185 students).

The average pass-rate of guestions 1-7 from the didactic test «The Big Bad Wolf» is 65%.The highest results are shown by students from the district centres (71%), followed by those in the capital (70%) and in villages (62%). The lowest results belong to the tested student from municipal centres (56%).

Comparative chart of the results by type of settlement

H Village	75%	70,54%	70,54%	53,57%	51,34%	41,69%	69,64%
и Municipal center	58,97%	66,67%	56,41%	43,59%	61,54%	25,64%	76,92%
M Regional center	91,53%	61,02%	91,52%	67,80%	49,15%	72,88%	64,41%
H Capital	91,38%	79,31%	50,00%	60,34%	70,69%	65,52%	70,69%

Comment: From the table and graphic representation of the results, it becomes clear that only 26% of student in the municipal centres can make a sound model of the word and 44% can delimit the syllables in the word and carry over parts of it.The students from the villages encounter the greatest difficulty on guestion six, where they have to make a sound model of the word «читанка» (a correct answer is indicated by 42% of them), and those from the district centres have difficulties with the task of indicating the wrongly spelt word «зит» (51% of them indicate a distractor or do not indicate any correct answer).

The average pass-rate of questions 1 – 7 from the didactic test «The Fox» is 73%. The highest results are shown by the students from the capital (83%), followed by those in the district centres (79%) and in the villages (64%). Lowest again are the results of the students from the municipal centres (63%).

Comparative chart of the results by type ofsettlement

1       2       3       4       5       6       7

И село	72,76%	80,80%	50,00%	66,07%	63,39%	46,88%	68,75%
■ общински център	82,05%	79,49%	53,85%	64,10%	38,46%	35,90%	89,74%
уобластен център	95,63%	87,98%	90,16%	54,10%	55,19%	90,16%	81,97%
И столица	78,69%	89,07%	66,12%	82,51%	86,34%	95,08%	85,25%

Just as with the first version of the didactic test, on the whole students achieve a pass-rate over 50%. The sound model of the word «буквар» poses difficulty for 64% of the students in the municipal centres and 53% of those in the villages. Only 38% of the students in the municipal centres can differentiate the sounds «дж», «ч» and «ж» indicate their correct spelling in words.

The next two diagrams illustrate the achievements of the students in the schools from the capital city, who gain the highest results on all criteria from question eight and on both didactic tests, by means of which their ability is tested to make sentences of various purposes depending on the communicative situation.

Inability to cope with the task in the test «The Big Bad Wolf» is shown by the students from the village schools (31%). The lowest number of students from schools from the distich centres can connect the words in a sentence correctly (36%) and put the correct punctuation mark at the end of a sentence (32%). Only 36% of the students from the municipal centres manage to form graphically correctly the beginning and end of a sentence.

Task 8 - comparative chart of the criteria

2    80,00% о    7000% ^    60,00% 5    зо;оо% 20,00/ь w	—
			_____HL_l i___
	Arrange men t			Capital letters	Punctuation	Fully wrong
■ Village	28,13%			41,52%	37,05%	36,16%
■ Municipal center	46,15%			41,03%	41,03%	23,08%
У Regional center	13,79%			29,31%	29,31%	41,38%
■ Capital	61,20%			66,67%	67,76%	2,73%

Inability to cope with the task in the test «The Fox» is shown by the students from the schools in the district centres (31%). They are also those who achieve the lowest results on the separate criteria for assessing the question: an ability to connect the words in a sentence correctly (14%), to form graphically correctly the beginning and end of a sentence (29%) and to put the correct punctuation mark at the end of a sentence (29%).

Comparative analysis of the results depending on whether the students are taught in a monocultural or multicultural environment

353 of the student tested are taught in a multicultural environment and 152 – in a monocultural environment. The students taught in a multicultural environment are from schools in villages, municipal and district centres and from the capital, and all those in a monocultural environment are from the capital.

In a monocultural environment, the students achieve higher results as compared to those in a multicultural one. From the table and graphic representation of the results from the didactic test «The Big Bad Wolf», it can be seen that only on question 4, which tests the ability of students to delimit the syllables in a word and to carry over parts of it correctly, and on question 5, in which students must indicate the word spelt wrongly, the students in a monocultural environment achieve results a little lower than the bilingual students.

The results from the test «The Fox» show that the students in a monocultural environment cope better in all questions except the first one which tests their ability to delimit the language unit sentence and to identify its limits in a text.

In conclusion, according to the registered results from the study conducted, it can be summed up that in order to increase the results of the children tested, additional work is needed. This, on the one hand, will raise the level of their language competence and, on the other hand, will stimulate their intellectual and cognitive development.