To not practice for the phonics screening?

[PlinthOfSoap]

Over half term it was suggested we look at past papers and practice with DC. I ignored this as we were relaxing and having fun.

Now a letter came home in the bag last night, asking us to practice over the weekend with past papers.

Am I being unreasonable to not bother, and just let DC have a go at it next week? Assume they have been doing all the necessary prep in school so DC isn't going to be completely blind sided.

I don't see why I would want to try and coach DC to get a better score, or am I doing him a disservice? I thought the results were important for the school but not really for DC, and I don't really want to make it a big thing by practicing past papers.

But surely parents know if their dc can read new words or not? I don't need a report to tell me that because I get my dc to read to me. And if he struggles sounding out a word we practice the sounds it's made up of. It's far more fun reading the BFG and seeing if he can read snozzcumbers rather than grilling him for a test.

Another thing about Phonics. They don’t work for all children.

Evidence based teaching, really?
What evidence is there for jumping on a bandwagon of someone's pet theory? Which is what has been happening ever since the National Curriculum was introduced by Kenneth Baker.
Phonics can be useful for decoding new words but THAT IS ALL. I used to teach phonics to Infants because they need to know the correlation between letters and sounds but that is actually most use for spelling. Oh and practising for spelling tests is also a waste of time, there are far better ways to learn to spell.
Some children learn to read without phonics. I did. I was reading before I started school, decades ago.

I commented up thread about DS who was identified early on as being a child who phonics just didn’t work for and learnt sight reading instead. What’s been interesting with him, is he’s developed a passion for Classical Civilisation. 9 at GCSE, predicted A* at A level and planning to read Classical Civilisation at uni. I asked him how he managed with all the names of Greek/Roman Gods, the mythology, reading The Odyssey (in English but still a lot of ‘weird’ words), just an awful lot of what look like ‘nonsense’ words. He looked at me like I was quite mad and said ‘I can read mum’ and he’s right, he can. He just accessed reading via a different method. I’m pleased school identified early on he needed to be taught differently.

Phonics does work for the majority of children, hence schools use it as their primary teaching method, but if we’d coached him to pass, and continued down the phonics route, I suspect he still wouldn’t be able to read and the subject he loves so much, would have been inaccessible for him. The end goal is that children can read. Some kids might need to take a different route and screening helps teachers identify that.

Or OP could not be “that parent” and just leave it be. Prepare with your child or don’t prepare with your child as you choose - other posters here have given good reasons for both sides, and you know your child best. But going into school to present an already overworked teacher who has a million other things to worry about with some “gotcha” question just to watch them “squirm”? Completely unnecessary.

As a former year 1/2 teacher, I'd at least have a go. It might take 5 minutes. And go over the rules with him. It's a ridiculous test that tries to catch kids out (unless it's dramatically changed in the past 5 years I haven't done it.)

For example, the 'alien word' might be 'hoppy'. And their brain autocorrects it to 'happy' and they don't notice. Or, they say 'hoppy, hoppy, happy', and they have to take his final answer, even though he's read it correctly the first 2 times.

If he doesn't pass (even by just 1 point), it's likely he'll be put into another phonics class in Year 2, which often means the other kids are doing SPAG/SATS practice and he'll miss out on all that input. Which I think would generally put him behind.

I am VERY against all this standardised testing, especially at this age! Honestly, it's a bit barbaric! But sometimes we have to play the game.

Just do 1 test if he gets fewer than 3 wrong, then don't worry about it! It would be finished quicker than you would take to drink a coffee (especially if he's confident with it).

We haven't bothered with any practice. DD5 can happily read a chapter book, and may well trip up on nonsense words. It really makes no difference as she will read anything and everything.....

I have conflicted feelings about this as a former year one teacher.

Fundamentally I entirely agree with you and my own children didn’t do practice papers. Though of course we did lots of reading together.

However from a teaching perspective, when the ‘check’ was first introduced I saw good readers not pass before we started ‘coaching’ in school. This was because good readers do autocorrect nonsense words to real words. They have to be taught specifically not to, which is really a teaching to the test kind of situation because in real life it’s a helpful strategy.

Nowadays, OFSTED and performance related pay means a lot can ride on whether enough children pass. In some areas that will be pretty easy, even with a very mediocre teacher and in some areas you could have the most fantastic teacher and due to the needs of that cohort, it’s going to be a struggle.

So I do really feel for schools where so much can feel on the line. A ‘bad’ phonics result could mean a poor OFSTED and the headteacher losing their job. That isn’t a good reason to harass your kids with past papers, but I do understand why schools’ worry and some try to coerce parents into treating it like GcSEs.

Surely prepping to pass the test is the worst idea. If they need extra support for another year to secure their phonics then that needs to be picked up. If you crash prep them to 'pass' then they dont carry on with phonics in year 2 when they may need too? Its not an test its a screening tool. My son finds phonics hard. I certainly wont be prepping him for a one off test as I honestly think having another year of phonics teaching will help him in the long run.

I love this idea that people keep saying if they don't pass in year 1 they will get extra support in year 2.
I might have thought this until I worked in a school but the reality is there is very limited staff, who do people expect or think is doing the extra support and when? Where I work the phonics scheme continues throughout the school and even children in year 4 can get grouped into their ability level - so you could get a 8 year old in the same group as the reception children if that is their level. This is the phonics session for 45 mins a day which could be held by a TA or teacher. Intervention outside of phonics time is given when possible to children but as schools have fewer and fewer TAs this doesn't generally happen either now, unless the child already has a 1:1 and they do this with them.
Maybe other schools have more staff and run phonics differently but for those who think that failing is a good thing when with a little support from home the child could pass be aware that there may not be extra things done in school that you anticipate.

I don’t have children so what I say is probably of limited value. The problem with what the school is asking you to do is that it is “teaching to the test“. This has been studied extensively and is a real problem. What they should be doing is focusing on the children’s progress and development and on the curriculum, not gasping and lurching from test to test.

If you did assist your son, would it improve his abilities overall? This is designed for the school, not to assist his development.

I don’t even know, because I just don’t have the experience, if managing to squeeze through this test would raise his skills for the required level and if so, why isn’t the school doing this work already? Why is there a gap between what he could do (his potential) and what he can do currently (his taught skill level)? Why is it that the parents are being required to fill that gap?

You wouldn’t prepare a child for a dyslexia screen and I view this test in the same way. It was designed as a check not as something to drill. It’s a problem really though when schools are heavily measured on results from tests like these- it totally distorts behaviour. I think the multiplication test is a little bit like this as well. My daughter’s year 4 was so dull as the focus on the multiplication test crowded out everything else.

Two points here. This is a test where actually it does have an impact on the child - if they fail they’ll get extra support next year and resit it.

A friend of mine is a teacher and realised her child was on track to fail half way through y1. She supported a lot at home (and school did lots) and her daughter scraped a pass…and all support in y2 dropped off as, yay she’s got it! Friend regretted doing so much as a fail would actually have helped the child get more support which she did still need in year 2.

so I guess it depends if you think your child needs extra support next year. If so, don’t help them pass. If they’re a good reader you don’t need to worry, though if they flunk it through lack of familiarity (which is on the school really not you) they’ll spend a year in phonics intervention which may be very dull if they can read fine.

The Y4 multiplication test was just brought in off the back of Michael Gove's (remember him?) move back to "basics" in the curriculum.
And because the Government doesn't trust schools and teachers to teach what they have been instructed to they had to bring in another formal check.

Learning times tables is obviously important but why bring in another formal test that then takes up extra time & causes teachers stress when they could be teaching & doing other things?

One of my children never got on top of times tables & still can't answer questions at speed now but got an A* in her maths A level and studies some maths in her current degree.
Luckily she was didn't have to sit this test as she had passed Y4 when it came in but I can just imagine the demoralising experience it would have been for her because she experienced that in the times table tests they did do at school.
She also hated Sats & went to Secondary school thinking she was bad at maths only to discover that once she got past the rote learning stage she was actually really good at it.

What support would they have got in year 2?
I am interested in this point as at mine there isn't some magic support that happens if they fail. They continue the phonics scheme (which they would all continue with regardless, passing the screening doesn't mean they jump from the group they were in onto reading their own books). No extras (as I mentioned, no staff for this sort of thing!).

Reading with your child at home and making sure they have access to fun, engaging books - absolutely. Past papers - not a chance.

My child is doing this screening this week and I didn’t even know there were “past papers”, I’d kind of assumed it was just a list of random words they had a crack at! The school have mentioned it is happening, nothing more than that. I encourage my child’s reading at every opportunity but as PP said, surely a true demonstration of their ability is what the child need here, so that extra support can be put in place if needed in year 2.

This! In reality, there is no money so no extra staff available to run the regular (ideally daily) interventions that the lowest 20% need. I bet there’s no one to even hear them read at school 1:1 regularly. They will re-sit it in Year 2 and either pass or fail and then that’s that! (They don’t sit it again for official purposes after Year 2.)

When I taught year 1&2 I was told it was a requirement that those who failed for extra support. A TA used to take them for extra practice a few times a week. I’ll acknowledge that was a few years ago and staffing is worse now.

The child I mentioned before did get extra help in y1. This was removed in y2 because she’d passed so didn’t need it any more. In reality she did. She scraped a pass due to lots of school and home help in y1 the struggled again once the support was removed in y2. Other children in the cohort have received support. The school is a large one and well staffed (I don’t really understand how).

I think that's the issue where I am - yes they want phonics (and maths) intervention to happen for those who are falling behind expected standards but the reality is that there is one TA potentially between two classes and that the number of children with sen needs who need support take up the time that TA has (maybe through supporting them in class, movement breaks, helping them calm if they have a meltdown and are having a tricky day).
That's great that some schools do still have staff to do additional phonics but in my experience this is something that usually gets pushed to the back even if they are planned in as other things end up taking priority (e.g. can't just leave a child screaming and having a meltdown).

You're being rather reductionist. This isn't a test where you pass and move on, such as a GCSE. The result of the screening will determine whether a child receives more support in their reading moving forward. As a parent, what benefit is there to artificially coaching a child through? Either your teaching has been adequate enough that they could do the screening without practice, or it hasn't.

It's supposed to be a measure of how well the school is teaching phonics and to raise any issues children are having with their learning. Our school didn't ask parents to do past papers and it wasn't really mentioned. So schools which do make it a big deal are are being compared to schools which don't in the test.

What is the point of the test if it doesn't result in more support when needed?? They have something similar in my country except they do it four times a year for the first 2 years and if a child "fails" (gets below the expected range) they will get proper support from the special ed teacher or an extra lesson once a week after school with the class teacher. I can see the point of doing a test just to see which children are in range or not without it being linked to support, just for information purposes (if more than normal are below range then maybe teaching methods need adjusting for instance) but in that case no one should be told they've failed, they shouldn't be told results at all.

Gosh it’s interesting I have such a different attitude.
I would definitely want to ensure my child passed the phonics screening and would happily do extra practice to help him feel comfortable with the format of the test.

We didn’t do any special test prep though did do plenty of reading practice more generally

unless the teacher has specifically said that your child needs more help on something very specific I wouldn’t sweat it at all. That all being said, one extra thing to look at this weekend won’t hurt at all

Surely the test is just your child, sitting with the teacher, one to one, reading words from a piece of paper. If that is stressful and difficult then the teacher hasn't spent any one to one time reading with the child.
They are told/taught that some of the words are alien or tricky.