to think that primary school teachers should be made to sit the year 1 nonsense words test

[ReallyTired]

It would be really interesting to see what proportion of existing qualified teachers can pass the year 1 phonics word test. Those who fail it should be sent on an intensive phonics course and then resit the test. Those who pass should be given a bonus. (It make make those teachers who have suffered a pay freeze for the last 3 years a little happier!)

In the Year one class I work in we play lots of phonics games on the interactive board. The games have real and made up words which the children have to sound out. So they get exposed to the idea of reading these words. They do phonics everyday and play these games at least twice a week.

lRD: The 'autocorrect' function that lets you read whole texts with typos as if the typos were not there (eg storm becoming strom) does not apply when you are asked to read a list of words in isolation , especially when the novel words annotated as such. In this test, there is a picute of an alien next to the novel word, and all pupils are told that alien picture means it's the name of the alien.

I haven't read the whole thread, just the OP's posts. I would suggest that the parents of the year 1 children sit the test rather than the professionals who are teaching their children.

It may be tongue in cheek, but I'm sick to death of the assumption that teachers are thick and don't know what they're teaching.
Strangely, nobody who sticks their oar in has the least inclination to become a teacher usually.

It does apply, auntie.

I agree it's stronger when a fluent reader is looking a a whole sentence.

No adult, who can read, would fail the Year 1 phonics test because

1. It's for 5 year olds
2. They are told that the words are 'alien' or nonsense
3. They are told to take their time and carefully sound out the word using phonics to avoid mistakes
4. All the sounds have been taught

How could you fail?

"
They should have proved they can read by now. And teachers had no say in the test. "

Its quite possible to learn to read without going near phonics. Infact there was virtually no explicit phonics teaching in the 1980s when many teachers went to primary school. Lots of adults learnt to read quickly and easily by look-say. I was never taught phonics at school and prehaps thats why my spelling is poor.

I would give teachers a test like this. Prehaps it makes sense to start at section 6.

www.rrf.org.uk/pdf/Ruth%20Miskin%20Nonsense%20Word%20Test.pdf

Words like naightentance or frubehabe needs a little more thinking about than simple nonsense words. The challenge is to read these words at speed while under pressure. It would not surprise me if plenty of excellent and talented graduates failed such a test. An ablity to bark at print is not the same as the ablity to read.

Words like naightentance or frubehabe needs a little more thinking about than simple nonsense words. The challenge is to read these words at speed while under pressure.

Not in the Year 1 phonics test. There is no time limit and no pressure.

really, I think even when you learn 'look and say', you do learn phonics, surely?

I mean, you can't learn more than a few thousand words visually, unless you're exceptional. You do transfer phonetic information, though I agree it's not a very effective way of doing it (and I was rubbish too).

phantomnamechanger if you rearrange the letter is it's harder to read. They are deliberately chosen to make it easy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typoglycemia

It's a phonics test not a reading test.

Did none of you read Dr Seuss? There's a wocket in my pocket and other classics?

Can anyone give me a link to the 'First 100 words' in the English school system, please?
I am going to be coming in from a different system and the one I am currently in, according to my HT, does not have a '100 first words' type assessment (I realise this may be slightly different to what you are speaking of in the post above).
I have a 9.6 yr old who cannot spell words such as 'two' or 'school' and I am worried....
I'd like to have a bit of a 'heads up' on what he should be capable of by now, iyswim?
thank you if anyone can advise?

They are called High Frequency Words first and you can google them.

It is all in here somewhere!

Here's one, for example

HFW

As kim demonstrates, even 'look and say' learners should be able to pass the test. In fact, the RWI training demonstrates how adults use phonic knowledge to decode new words- but at a syllable level rather than grapheme level, and using previously learned words to extract the phonic knowledge. They gave the example of 'eudaimonia' which is a real word that many people haven't heard of, but nevertheless most people could pronounce correctly. Most adults would read it as 'eu' as in 'euphemism' (you) 'dai' as in the welsh name (dye) or as in daily (day) 'monia' as in 'pneumonia'.

So bearing in mind the phonic test for year 1 children contains real words which conform to regular phonic rules, and non words which have been formed by changing one letter of a phonemically regular word, adults should be able to read them by analogy to the original word iykwim. So if they change 'bus' to 'vus' the adult would register that it looks like 'bus' and should sound similar.

And for graphemes that are regularly pronounced in 2 or more ways, either of the regular pronunciations is acceptable. So 'bown' pronounced to rhyme with 'grown' or with 'brown', either would be correct. What wouldn't is the mistake many below average children make- which is to 'sound out' each individual letter b o w n and come up with something like bowwun.

I would find it hard to believe that any NT native English speaking adult, (given the same conditions as the children with the aliens indicating non words, and one word per page in a clear font and no time limit) could fail the test. Make one or two errors maybe as a result of carelessness, but you usually need to make more than that to fail.

Oh, great, thanks!
Should children be able to SPELL these though, as well as read them?
And
what stage of the lists should kids be at at what age?
(if that is not 'how long is a piece of string')?

What would be the purpose of giving teachers this test?

I can't remember how I learned to read, by the way, but I could read all those nonsense words.

The purpose of the test is to ensure the sounds are being taught. If the majority of the class fail, then the teacher is not teaching phonics properly.

The majority of the class would not struggle with listening and reading if it is being taught effectively.