To be worrying about the year 1 phonics screening test?

[mumoftwo99x]

Just came out from my son’s first parents evening of year 1 feeling a tiny bit deflated.

My son has not long turned 5 and is the youngest in his year. He’s otherwise doing well in school and is advanced in mathematics - working at late year 2 level so he is intelligent in that sense.

However he is extremely behind in reading. He knows all the phonics/sounds and can read very basic words like and/the/cat/dog/mum/dad etc but just physically cannot blend longer words.

His teacher has said there’s a phonics screening test at the end of year 1 and she already knows there’s no chance he’ll pass .. 😩 she also showed me the books that a lot of the class are on and he’s nowhere near that level.

I asked her what this means and she just said he’ll have to redo it in year 2 but she said majority of the class will pass and that he’ll be essentially starting year 2 still behind everyone else.

AIBU to be worrying about this so early on? Did any of your children fail this screening but then went on to catch up in other years?

We already do daily reading at home and he’s genuinely came on so far since reception and after the half term he’ll be going into a reading interventions group which will hopefully help. Any other tips on how I can help at home will be very helpful! 🤞🏼

The test is for school.

You have nothing to worry worry about.

Keep reading everything and anything you can with your son for pleasure!

Nothing will happen if he doesn’t pass it, he’ll just carry on learning at his own pace in year 2.

My dd is in yr 1 as well and her teacher hasn’t even mentioned the phonics test yet, it’s way too early to be worrying about it.

That screening is months and months away, alit will happen.
Chill. Just read to him and have him read.

I’d loosely heard of it but yeah I definitely didn’t expect the pressure so soon, today it was made out to be a huge deal 😅

Yeah will definitely keep up with the daily reading at home as that’s just something we’ve done since reception anyway

Think about it... What age were you a free reader? And your DH? Your siblings? Parents. neighbours...the teacher...?

You probably have no idea, nor do they.

Some will have done it at 4... others 8...others 6... But I'm sure they can all read and have done well for themselves regardless of when they got there.

YABU. My youngest just failed hers. Literally zero has happened as a result of that.

the school identified her difficulties early and have given her extra support and will look to introduce a different reading method rather than phonics (which apparently not all children can grasp) they can also be tested for dyslexia from 7 so she’s gone one the list for that.

@BusWankersYou’re right. I really like that perspective! Thank you

Try not to stress. It sounds like he is doing fine, he knows his phonic sounds, just the blending hasn’t clicked yet. My guess is, when it does click, he will progress really fast.

Ok, so what you do is arrange to meet with the teacher and the SENCo, and at that meeting, ask them what they plan to do to support your child in order to ensure he progresses whilst in Year 1. Because basically the teacher is saying that over the remaining 3r weeks of the school year she will not be able to teach your child anything!

Ignore them.
The 8 months between now and then will have been have been nearly a 10th of his entire life!

That's like saying you're worried that you won't be able to learn to drive with the next 8 years!

My son took quite a while to learn to read and I was really worried. People said it would just click and it did. He passed his phonics test in June. Not sure how really but he did. His in year 2 and progressing really well of a sudden. Still hates doing it.

his very good at maths and has a natural curiosity towards science. Can’t all be good at everything

I used to teach Year 1 and have done the phonics screening many, many times. The children will be doing daily phonics and depending on the scheme they use may be grouped to taylor to the children's abilities.

Many schools send home lots of little fun activities for the children to do, with suggestions for websites like Phonics Play too.

If they think your child would benefit from extra support they may put phonics interventions into place where children get an extra daily boost of phonics.

They are tested on 40 words (20 alien words and 20 real words) and the pass rate historically has been 32, it's never changed so far.

If anyone doesn't pass, they take it again in Y2. Loads of Y1 children make a massive surge of progress in the Spring term so I really wouldn't worry yet.

It’s really rotten of the teacher to say now that he doesn’t have a chance. As a PP pointed out, it’s ages away.

If he doesn’t pass, it makes no difference. But if school is that worried, I’d be asking what interventions they’re going to put in place.

oh no, please don’t worry. The teacher is being ridiculous saying she already knows he will fail. My children’s school were very laidback about it and didn’t even tell us the results, it’s just to see if they need to work on phonics for a bit longer with some students. Really so they don’t move on without that solid foundation, similar to the times table check in year 4.

Chiildren develop at such different rates too, I really wouldn’t worry at this stage. They seem to level out a lot by year 3, your child will definitely get there particularly as you seem to care a lot and read to and with him regularly.

Whether or not he passes the phonics screening is largely irrelevant - as a pp said, it's a test for the school (like the SATS). I'm a KS1 TA and teach phonics every day. What's important is whether he's making progress through the year.

I spend most years teaching the children at the lower end of the range, and most of them (either through SEND needs or just a struggle with reading) have very little chance of passing. They all make a huge jump forward in ability between September and the screening, and that's more important than an arbitrary pass/fail on a piece of paper.

Honestly, don't fret about the screening. Keep doing what you're doing, encourage his reading, and encourage him if he notices he's behind. The child that starts Y1 knowing 5 sounds and ends it knowing 25, or starts unable to blend at all and ends it reading CVC words, should be just as proud (if not moreso) than the ones who start with the set 1 and 2 sounds down but need to work on fluency. The second child is more likely to pass the phonics screening, but it doesn't mean the first has made any less valuable progress.

Your post made me so cross. He is five years old for goodness sake. Why a teacher would talk about him not passing a phonics test and not having a chance to do so is ridiculous. He sounds as if he is a perfectly able and normal five year old. You are doing everything to encourage him to develop his language skills in a normal way. There are many other skills which aid reading such as context, syntax, familiarity of book language and above all enjoyment. Phonics are important but are not the be all and end all. In fact it is important to remember that phonics can also burden a child as they struggle to sound out words while only holding onto a few elements in their short term memory. An educationist I heard talking at London University years ago (Frank Smith) stated that it was perfectly possible to teach children it was too difficult. Share books, talk about the content. Choose books which he enjoys and do not concern yourself with which book he is on. Whatever you do do not let him think he is failing which is rubbish. Let the school test the children. The testing is for their records. Please the world of books should be a joy and not a task.

Like everyone else has said it’s very odd of them to say now that he won’t pass. Sounds like you’re doing a great job working on his reading and encouraging him at home.
Have you/the school thought about whether he might be dyslexic? What’s his writing and spelling like?

My daughter didn't pass her phonics screening, she was also the youngest in her year and struggled with reading. I'd say it didn't really click for her until year 3/4, she was very far behind until then and was actually put on the schools SEN register.

She's now 15 and in year 11 and is on track to pass all her GCSEs with 5s or 6s (Bs and Cs) I remember worrying about her so much in the early years of primary and there really was no need. She still isn't fond of reading and will be doing an apprenticeship when she leaves school, but she is absolutely fine academically and caught up.

Incidentally my other daughter was always greater depth in primary and I didn't have a single worry about her, it all went wrong in secondary and she only scraped a pass in 3 GCSEs. You really can't tell how things will turn out when they are only 5.

The only thing I would be worried about is your son's teacher. What she has said to you is totally unprofessional.

What a weird thing for the teacher to say!

We got told that the phonic screening test was simply to formally identify kids who need extra support with reading.

You may well find this year is transformative - my ds went from very basic phonic skills to an easy pass of the phonic screening test within the space of Year 1.

We didn’t just “read”. We had a heap of phonic sounds on little squares of card, and we would shuffle the cards and he had to say the sound as fast as possible - start with individual letters, then the basic combinations like “ng”, “th” , “ay”, “or” etc. then we took our basic sounds and added simple words - loads of them! We started with easy ones phonetic words like “and, bat, car” then we had some blends like “stop, play, green”. Then we added “red words” which can’t be read phonetically like I, she, the . And then later in the year it was words with split sounds for example a_e, in “cake”.

We would try and read at least 100 words a day including many of the ones he’d already learned so he had a feeling of success.

I really think this helped him a lot - he loved seeing the pile of words he could read getting bigger and bigger, and he loved the race/speed aspect of it.

Later in spring we’d do “made up alien words” too

The teacher should absolutely not have told you that she doesn't think your DS has a chance. And it is the School's job to worry and put in place appropriate intervention,not yours. Please do not worry.

Print out the phonics up to phase 5, print out a few phonics screening test practice sheets and read them through with him a few times a week. If you’re consistent, he’ll pick it up and be fine.

The teacher is unfairly projecting the pressure she gets from SMT on to you. They want high scores but frankly if he ‘fails’ he does it again in Y2 and school will put in support for him. The summer term is about 10% of his life away. Don’t worry at all, enjoy boos with him.