To be confused about Phonics screening test

[MuvaWifey77]

That's it really. Confused to why it exists? What's used for ? I was educated in a boarding School in Brazil , my son is now 6 so this is a new things for me...

It's simply a screening to see if pupils are secure with the skills of decoding text.

It's just standardising what good teachers did anyhow. There shouldn't be any surprises, and it's a way of checking early on which pupils may need extra help.

It's pretty self explanatory to be fair...

Thanks austieStella, I'm still getting used to how school curriculum works in the uk... thanks .

Thanks snap8 . Obviously I know what it means , test phonics , the intuit of it it's not very clear . Get it?

Muva It was introduced because the methods used by some schools (whole words, guessing from context/pictures) had led to some children who were perceived in infants to be 'good readers' stalling in juniors because they hadn't learned how to sound out words.

This meant the children couldn't read words they hadn't seen before and could for example confuse eclectic/electric/eccentric thus changing the meaning of what they were reading.

Sadly there are still some teachers/schools (and thus parents) who continue the myth that 'good readers get beyond phonics' / 'good readers fail the phonics test'. Which is why the screening is still needed. Schools which teach reading well don't have an issue with the phonics test.

They read 40 words. Some of the words are alien words (made up), which they have to identify. If they get less than 32 right they are given additional support (in theory). Any teacher worth their salt would already have identified children in need of help but the government loves a test.

Not much to add with the above, it's pretty simple and has been well explained.

Just to add that it is to monitor the school, and it should not stress children at all. My child wasn't even sure when she had had hers. A good reader will sail through it (as long as they have been taught reading with phonics).

Some of the words are alien words (made up), which they have to identify.

Just to clarify the above comment. The child is told whether a word is made up or not, they don't have to work that out for themselves. So there is no reason at all for them to try to shoehorn a made up word into a real one.

To clarify again alien (made up) words are there as so the child cannot simply be reading memorised words.

Eg Pluke. (Ok I've not checked if it's made up or not but you get the drift). A child with good phonics experience should know that it sounds phonetically like "Plook" instead of "plucky".

The phonics test is there, like the SATS, to check the school not the child (although it does indicate if a child needs extra help). Who would argue with that? back in my day, the good old 70s-80s, one school's "excellent" judgement of a child's ability/knowledge/learning was another school's "poor", due to lack of national standard.

Kids read 40 words, some real some made up, to test if their phonics skills

Slightly off topic, but I have lots of lovely memories of primary school in the 70's.

I remember loads of art, craft, weaving, singing etc.

I don't remember ever feeling pressurised.

Primary school today is so tough on pupils and teachers. Ridiculous pressure makes for stressed out kids and the curriculum has become very narrow.

Super - my dd would love to go to a school where she did arts and crafts all day

My fantasy land primary school Star... would have p.e. music, art, forest type activities etc every day with small amounts of formal work only when each child was ready. Learning should be enjoyable.

In the UK too much pressure is put on dcs to start reading before they are developmentally ready. They therefore find it much harder than if they started later as in most of the rest of the world.

Rainbows - my experience so far of my children's primary school (y1&3) is that there has been no pressure whatsoever on the children.
So, as far as I can tell, it's either different in different schools, or the pressure is only coming from individual parents, or the media is making it all up.

Thanks for everyone's messages I had a false alarm labour and thought was having my baby 7 weeks early ... phewwww ...so didnt check this... but thanks