The Phonics Test for 6 Year Olds

[WroxhamSchool]

Hello from me!

Just a little introduction, I am the Deputy Head of The Wroxham Primary, in Potters Bar. We are a one form entry Primary School with a Nursery. We work on the principle that our children are the most important part of the school and as a result, we include them in their learning. For example the children help work out where we are going to go with our topics and they select the challenge of work they feel confident with, which makes for a great learning environment and one where the children feel valued. The school has moved from Special Measures in 2003 to Outstanding in in 2006, where it has stayed ever since.

That is just a little bit of background information, now onto the main event! I emailed Rowan Davies, who suggested that I posted on here, so I hope that is ok?

As some of you know the Government has decided to bring in a new test for our six year olds in England, to check their phonic knowledge. We at our school and many other organisations (see list below) are against this idea, as it goes against everything that we believe in.

We feel that this test, which will be reported to OFSTED, will narrow the curriculum for the children in Nursery and Reception, as some schools will feel pressure to ensure that the children are ready for the test in Year 1. This is not a good thing as it will result in putting some of our children off reading, as not every child accesses reading through this method.

We have started a campaign, which is gathering momentum, with our base being readingshouldbefun.wordpress.com

On the Blog you will find lots of information about the test, in addition to this you will find a short video showing the real meaning of reading (which does include phonics, just not only phonics).

We would love to have the support of Mumsnet, as we know that you are key to our children's learning (we only have them 6 hours a day!).

I would be interested to hear from people and try to answer any of your questions. I will also direct some of the people who are backing the campaign to this site, as they have additional information to myself.

Below is a statement from The Cambridge Primary Review, which details their position, but I would like to emphasise that we do not have a problem with the teaching of phonics, just the fact that our 6 yr olds don't need to be tested, or have the data sent to OFSTED.

Thanks in advance

Roger Billing

One of the key recommendations of the Cambridge Primary Review, the most comprehensive research into English primary education for the last forty years, recommends that children should have an entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum. Research evidence in this country and internationally shows that talking to and with young children is of great developmental importance. Telling stories, listening to stories and enjoying books is a vital part of learning throughout primary school. The following video clip shows that enjoying high quality literature at primary school is essential and that learning to read should be a varied and rewarding process.

Some of the Groups backing the Campaign

David Reedy ? President, UKLA

John Coe ? Chairman, National Association for Primary Education (NAPE)

Alison Peacock ? National Network Leader for the Cambridge Primary Review (CPR)

John Hickman ? Chair, National Association of Advisers for English (NAAE)

Russell Hobby ? General Secretary, National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT)

Christine Blower ? General Secretary, National Union of Teachers (NUT)

Professor Trisha Maynard ? Chair of The Association for the Professional Development of Early Year Educators (TACTYC)

Bill Goodhand ? Chair of The National Association for Small Schools (NASS)

Isn't it just?
It's only when you read it you realise how deeply this philosophy has seeped into the working practices of really quite same peopel.

Terrifying.

The real issue here is not the 10% who may have APD ADHD or other cognitive issues which prevent tem from using phonics.
If you read the neurological research about how we learn to read, the discussion is about two neurological processes required to perform the task of reading, the Sublexical process (Phonics) which is the decoding process, and the Lexical process (Whole Word) to enable comprehension of the meaning of the code.
So all children regardless of their cognitive abilities need to be taught to use both processes.
The problem is that the marketing hype from the competing phonics and whole word industries fails to recognise our childrens real learning needs, and they all ignore the international neurological research regarding how we learn to read because it conflicts with their marketing needs. The same applies to Local Education Authorities who do not want to spend the initial money to provide the programs all children need, and Teachers would require a great deal more training to understand how best to teach all children based on the neurological research rather than the old wives tales many seem to rely on.

So like the Medical Research Council researches medical issues, there is a great need for an Educational Research Council to cut through all of he marketing hype, political dogma and ignorance that blights our education system.

IndigoBell

you do like simplistic solutions to complex issues.
problems of a phonics only teaching system is more hyperlexic like children who can decode any text but have no understanding of the text they have read, nor understand how they can begin to carry out their research to find out and understand what they have read.
They are great at decoding, but unable to comprehend what they have read, and because they believe that reading is only about decoding they do not bother to try to comprehend what they have read.
So may be if you go back to basics you could have a look at my online PubMed Learning research paper collection, may be my PubMed Reading research paper collection, and PubMed Dorsal and Ventral Streams - functional anatomy of language research paper collection which are all listed on my Communication ands Neurology research paper collections web page

I am sure there are many more and probably more informative papers available but as you have mentioned understanding Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) has always been my main motivation, but as I have found out in recent years there is so much ignorance regarding the basics of how we learn and how we communicate, that it is almost impossible to have a sensible conversation or discussion about APD because the so called educational professionals do not have clue about the basics in the first place, lat alone the ability to discuss having problems with our cognitive abilities.

Re. APD: Where commercial and clinical interests collide: Prof. Dorothy Bishop writes: ''Given the lack of agreement on diagnostic criteria and lack of recognition in formal guidelines, it?s impossible to find sensible epidemiological data on APD''
deevybee.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-commercial-and-clinical-interests.html#comments

Another excellent book is 'Inside the secret garden' by Tom Burkard.
www.amazon.co.uk/Inside-Secret-Garden-Progressive-Education/dp/0955464218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309158631&sr=8-1

That looks interesting Maverick.
Have ordered.

OP - I completely disagree. I am glad that schools have to teach phonics and glad that the children will be tested on it. I'm happy to have my son tested by his teacher - she should be doing this anyway. I'm glad that my children's school won't be able to get away with giving the kids look-and-say books from the dark ages and hoping they'll pick reading up with parental encouragement - which they can rely on. Hooray for Michael Gove.

OP - I completely disagree. I am glad that schools have to teach phonics and glad that the children will be tested on it. I'm happy to have my son tested by his teacher - she should be doing this anyway. I'm glad that my children's school won't be able to get away with giving the kids look-and-say books from the dark ages and hoping they'll pick reading up with parental encouragement - which they can rely on. Hooray for Michael Gove.

We do teach phonics, we always have, but we also use other methods, not just phonics. There will be schools who will only use phonics as a result of the test, matched funding and being told to do so by the Gov and Local Authorities, which will result in some children, not all, but certainly some children being put off reading.

Phonics are key, we don't disagree with that, but there are many other types of phonics as well as many other methods to help develop reading. This test will change the way some schools work, in a negative way. Regardless of what some people think, there are schools with weak or worried leadership who will take this on with the wrong amount of emphasis. You have to understand that we are only looking out for the children, we are happy for schools to be accountable, allow them to be accountable in the way we are now. Let schools provide the data to OFSTED and their local authority and if they can't show improvement or development, then implement new and existing strategies for improvement.

Maybe some of the money that is going to be put towards the matched phonic resources could be put towards the schools who are having trouble with their reading, or the initial teacher training/development of existing staff. The Children at Wroxham are passionate readers, and talented ones at that, but not through a drilled daily session of only phonics, but by a mixture of phonics, shared reading with other children and adults, exploration and support from home.

Finally, to quote Professor Emeritus Janet Moyles:

"Can we be clear that there are other forms of phonics teaching, e.g. analytic phonics where children are taught to break down words and analogy phonics where ?chunks? of words are focused upon (e.g. ?an?) and then other letters added, e.g. ?f?, ?m?, etc? I have used all of these in my teaching and different children respond to different methods. Yes, phonics is very useful but why are the government focusing on only one form of phonics teaching at the expense of others which may be more effective in teaching children with different styles of learning? I wonder if this has anything to do with the commercial interests of the people who advise them??"

All schools which teach phonics (which you state are the key), provided they do so competently, have nothing whatsoever to worry about from this check. And it will provide the evidence that a variety of methods are working equally well. It should be welcomed with open arms.

Re. analogy phonics, also known as onset and rime:
Dr Macmillan says, '?teaching children about onset and rime as a route to discovering individual phonemes is similar logic to thinking that a person can be taught to read music by memorising chords on, say a guitar or piano. Although it may be relatively easy for a person to learn the names of some musical chords and how to play them, there is little possibility that this knowledge will lead to the ability to read musical notation, to the ability to play individual notes on these instruments in response to the corresponding written symbols.' (Why Schoolchildren can't read p82).

Furthermore, recent studies 'have shown conclusively that children do not use rhyming endings to decode words; hardly ever decode by analogy to other words; and that ability to dissect words into onsets and rimes has no impact whatsoever on learning to read and spell. (Prof. D.McGuinness Why Children Can't Read p148)

And, as Sir Jim Rose said:
'(S)ynthetic' phonics is the form of systematic phonic work that offers the vast majority of beginners the best route to becoming skilled readers. Among other strengths, this is because it teaches children directly what they need to know...whereas other approaches, such as 'analytic' phonics, expect children to deduce them' (Rose Review. 2006 para 47)

OP - etched on my memory is a clip from a documentary last year - a chap called Gareth Malone went into a primary school called Pear Tree Mead in Essex to help boys improve their literacy. Several of the boys in Y6 just couldn't read. There was one lovely little lad who wanted to join in but couldn't. He seemed bright enough. And when he was shown the sound "oo", on the programme, he didn't know what sound it made in words. This was a year 6 child with just weeks to go until secondary.

With his level of literacy he had no chance of keeping his head above water with the demands of the secondary curriculum. And I know that one in four boys leaves primary unable to read well enough. What I don't understand, is why there are so many teachers who think that's okay - that we should carry on doing what we're doing at the moment. Seven years is what a child has in primary school. Why are there perfectly bright children coming away from primary with no literacy? It's not the middle class children whose parents will fill the gap, but the children whose parents may not have the resources to help them or to recognise that something is wrong. It makes me angry that it's the children who are socially and economically disadvantaged already that are most likely to be failed again by their schools.

My eldest son is in reception. I taught him to read, at home, starting in February this year, using phonics based material. He was learning letter sounds in class but then expected to read books from the 1980s with no phonic-based content. He was unhappy and didn't like reading. He is now a few weeks from the end of reception and reading fluently, choosing to spend his time reading his favourite books. His teacher wondered at parents' evening how he'd come on so much.

So I'm angry for all the children currently being failed, and believe that Gove wants the best for them. I'm not ideologically a tory, but can't fault the government on this one. And to suggest it's some kind of conspiracy to do with commercial interests is contemptible - I am appalled that a headteacher could lend credibility to this.

I don't get this whole phonics business. I'm a foreign national and was not born in the UK nor did I go to school here.

Why is there so much fuss about phonics, I speak 5 languages and I don't believe for one minute that English is a phonetic language. I have 2 children who both could read before they went to school. From a young age we shared books with our children and played games such as " find the word on the page" i/e a technique based on recognition more so than sounding out and decoding. Our kids were aware from a young age that some words you simply have to recognize and others you can start to work out by looking at the letters. I don't know the rights or wrongs about different methods but a lot of the children at my child's school who were taught to read at school using phonics seem to have problems with comprehension when they reach the end of year 2. In both my children's years it was a common complaint. I remember a lot of the mums saying that the children could read the words beautifully but often found it difficult to understand what they were reading.

The only problem I have with testing is that some schools may appear to be better than others based on test results whilst a lot of parents are working with their children at home or are employing tutors. We fell in to this trap. Our children are in a schools which was ranked high in the local league tables, only, when we got there it quickly became apparent that a lot of the children had a tutor outside school, sadly the teaching at school turned out to be pants, despite an outstanding Ofsted report.

Jinx - you are very lucky your children were able to pick up reading this way. Some kids can. Some can't......

The result of the test won't be published, so parents won't know the results....

It is true that phonics teaching can be so effective that kids can read stories which are hard for them to understand - whereas if they were only reading stories with words they recognised they'd be reading easier stories and understanding them.

I saw this a bit with my youngest DS who was taught properly using phonics. He could read any word - yet couldn't sit down and read a chapter book because he was too immature. Roll on another 6 months and his maturity had caught up with his phonics knowledge and he can now understand harder books.....

Jinx: phonics is nothing to do with whether the phonetics of a language are regular. It is to do with the code between the written symbols and the oral language - some are very regular (eg Serbocroat) and some completely irregular (eg Chinese). If you are learning Chinese, you have to learn every single character by rote - which leads to a very different classroom experience. Learning to decode the language by phonics (what sounds are represented by certain squiggles or combinations of squiggles) is key to learning a language - much better to learn that "p" is /p/ and then have fun with /p/ words, than just be resented with lots of words and be expected to work out /p/ over time by yourself. Doubly important with digraphs, and sounds that can be represented more than one way.

English IS a completely phonetic written language - the alphabet letters represent the sounds in our speech- all writing systems are based on sounds. There is not one word in English that can't be sounded out -there are words that have unique or rare spellings for sounds, but there are only 7-9 very common English words that may be best taught as whole words.

Re. comprehension and phonics teaching:
There is a widely circulated myth that too much emphasis on phonics instruction causes children to 'bark at print / word-call'. 'There is no research evidence indicating that decoding a known word into a phonological form often takes place without meaning extraction. To the contrary, a substantial body of evidence indicates that even for young children, word recognition automatically leads to meaning activation..when the meaning of the word is adequately established in memory. (Prof.Stanovich)

''Experienced practitioners and teachers point out that, in the course of phonics teaching, as children 'start to get the hang of it', they begin to self-teach and 'need to read a lot to consolidate their skills', that is, to develop effortless reading and focus more and more on comprehending the text. At this point, children may appear, some would say, to be 'barking at print' without fully understanding what they are reading. Although this is often levelled as a criticism of phonic work, such behaviour is usually transitional as children hone their phonic skills. Given that even skilled adult readers may find themselves 'barking at print' when they are faced at times with unfamiliar text, it is hardly surprising that children may do so in the early stages of reading'' (Rose Review 2006 para 49)

Yes there are;
Ironing, Greenwhich, there are also words such as polish, We polish the table and it is polish (i/e from Poland ) same spelling but it sounds different and must be seen in context.

jinx: there are quite a lot of silent letters in English and the silent "r" is just one of many examples. Rules for these are taught. Also there are other pairings with different pronunciations, but they both follow phonic rules and both pronunciations can be arrived at phonically and tested for meaning. You can work out the truly irregular words from their phonic "scaffolding". If you do not know the phonic code, you cannot work them out at all.

Ir (/i-e/)-o-n-i-ng and G-r-ee(/e/)-n -whi(/i/)ch. They do have unique or rare spellings but these aren't words that I'd expect a reception child to be able to read anyway. They certainly wouldn't come up in a beginning reader's decodable book. Re. polish and polish - 'code overlap' tackles this with no difficulties IME.

maverick

Fortunately Dorothy Bishop is only a minor player with regard to the Medical Research Councils APD diagnosis research program, which has produce a new diagnostic Battery of tests based on sound frequency which eliminates the previous connections of APD and only processing speech.

if you understood APD and the history of APD research in both the USA and the UK you would realise that her comments relate to the 1990s situation in the USA where APD was being diagnosed in relation to the provision of a range of remedial programs, the commercial interest, very much like dyslexia. There are no cures for APD and that is the commercial conflict, there is no package of cures to sell. And it is commercial funding that drives research in the USA, which is not the can here in the UK.

But the issue is not so much about a diagnosis of APD but more the abiliyt to process the GAPs between sounds, which is a requirement for phonic blending, and the GAPs test is only one of the battery of tests included in an APD assessment and diagnosis.

You would appear to be another phonics fanatic, part of the phonics industry, only interested in increasing the sales of phonics programs books etc and not really interested in the learning needs of children.

dolfrog, the only thing I'm fanatical about is getting all children reading as quickly and as simply (and as inexpensively) as possible.

Schools that use genuine synthetic phonics programmes as designed, and with enthusiasm, don't have 'dyslexics'. They teach all children how to read before they go on to secondary school.

My only income is through my private tutoring. I also do voluntary tutoring at my local school.

You appear to be part of the 'can't read = must be something wrong with the child' industry.

meditrina

Writing systems have developed tot best suite those who design and create them, and not by those who are forced to use them.
There are many different writing systems all designed to meet a specific cognitive communication need of the systems designers and creators. Each writing system has pluses and minuses, and best suited to the learning style of the ruling class of each society.

Each writing system is defined by it orthography, or structure, and the subtly different cognitive skills required to process each different orthography. The purest writing systems (shallowest orthography) are the logographic writing systems single word sound to single graphic symbol represerntation. The most complex writing systems (deepest orthography) are alphabets which have multiple graphic symbols to represent a single word sound.
With in each writing system there can be many different languages, each with its own orthography. And then with in some languages there can even more Dialects again each with its own orthography.
We use the Latin Alphabet writing system, in which the purest langauges are Italian and Finnish (shallowest orthography) and the most complex is English (deepest orthography). And we are using the most complex language in the most complex writing system. Added to which there are hundreds of different dialects of English, within the UK and on the various continents around the world all using different othographies for their version of English.

So it will not surprise you to know that it is possible to have a child bilingual in Japanese and English, but dyslexic only in English. This variation in langauge structure demonstrates the differences in human learning styles and communication needs. And this will be represented in our childrens different learning needs with regard to learning to use the writing system or graphic symbols used by our society to represent the sounds of speech, or a visual notation of speech.

Unfortunately there appears to be a lack of understanding of these complex human issues in our education system and in the politics which govern our education system, which would appear to be dominated by marketing or sound bite need.

maverick

"You appear to be part of the 'can't read = must be something wrong with the child' industry."

I am part of understanding a childs learning needs society, so that the teaching methods best match the childs learning style, and not the limited training of the teacher.

First you have to understand the cognitive requirement to use a written language, and then you have to identify the different cognitive skill sets of each child to assess which teaching methods best suite each child, and if a child has a cognitive deficit or disability, then which is the best apprach to help that child develop alternative compensating strategies to develop skill to to enable that child to process that specific written langauge. There is no one single teaching program which best suites all childrens learning needs, no one size fits all.
And those who promote phonics only approach are promoting the impossible a one size fits all approach.
So no I am from the get everyone to read society, by using the best teaching methods based on scientific researh to match each childs learning needs and not the income needs of a particular program provision industry, inc;luding those who are only trained to use a single program.

dolfrog: yes. Except of course English wasn't created. It evolved. The history of language evolution is a fascinating field. But totally irrelevant here.

Unless you're advocating a created approach like the much discredited ITA.

meditrina

I forgot to mention that my interest in this stems from trying to help my children to read, precisely because they can not use phonics, which has meant that their schools have failed to enable them to read effectively.
And to understand the nature of the reasons why they were having these difficulties I had to investigate and research as condition which was recognised in the USA but not in the UK. The Medical Research Council gained Government funding to research Auditory Processing Disorder in 2004, and have spent the first 5 years developing new universal APD diagnostic tests, which have only recently completed the required clinical trials. The next stage is to have this NEW battery of diagnostic tests accepted with a new universal clinical definition of APD. which takes time. This does not mean that APD does not exist as maverick was trying to suggest, but more that APD is a complex issue, and the more research they carry out the more complex the issues become.
In order for the Medical Research Council to gain their UK government funding they required a parent based support group to monitor their research progress, which is why I was asked to create what turned out to be Auditory Processing Disorder in the UK (APDUK) and currently I am Vice Chair of APDUK. APDUK is a completely voluntary organisation.

Oh for goodness sake, dolfrog, 'learning styles' is just pop psychology and has no place in the teaching of reading.

meditrina

You need to understand how each language has evolved and continues to evolve.
English has evolved in so many different ways to meet the communication needs of the different societies that use it.
And It is society that govern the language we use as a form of communication, and each subgroup in a society has its own different communication needs. So the history of the English language will tell you which groups of society it will best suite, but there are other groups for whom this is not the best form of communication which can be illustrated by the other writing systems our fellow humans have created.

There is no one size fits all answer, but you need to understand that there are groups for whom the chose written langauge system is not the best match for their communication needs ,and there never will be.
this is more about as humans we are all different and some are more different than others. I am one of those as are my family or may be considered more different, and what you are advocating is alien to my communication needs. And you do not want to understand these differences and differences of learning needs probably because it conflict with your personal agenda.