'this' is a tricky word and can't be sounded out ...

[rushofbloodtothefeet]

So goes the teachers comment in DDs reading book.

Aaargh!

I hereby give up all hope of her school teaching any child to read effectively. I shall continue teaching my daughter to read at home - where she is happily reading the Songbirds books. (And she was able to work out 'this' by herself before she even started reception)

Oh dear! DD learnt the two /th/ sounds last week and I'm pretty certain she could sound out this, though she would need some help working out whether it was the stretchy or bouncy sound I suppose.

Only 12 letter sounds and no digraphs yet? That is shocking :( DD has nearly done all the JP sounds, even amidst the chaos of the school play they've done 3 or 4 a week... The school isn't perfect, they still have non-decodable books, but I am pretty certain they will have finished the basic 44 by Xmas, and DD is blending simple words and spelling them quite well thanks to the work they've done at school...

12... That is ridiculously slow :( decoding must be incredibly boring with only 12 phonemes FFS!

mrz 'the' was in the word bag we've had since half-term, I can only guess it has been introduced as a tricky word. I have to admit it was the first word DD learnt as a whole word, and she did it quite automatically as it is such a common word.

I was just wondering if/how the teacher had taught the because if it had been previously taught then the th phoneme was surely mentioned/introduced even "incidentally"

Actually we got 6 new letters/sounds in the bag today - e, u, r, h, b and ck

I don't know if that is reassuring or not, I guess I had kind of hoped they were pressing on with more letters at school than they had sent home, but it appears not. It just seems such a disparity between the sounds taught and the words in the books (even though they are only the pink level ones). I honestly don't know how the other parents are approaching it, are they teaching their kids to read at home too, or are they just using the reading books to share reading with their children. It is perplexing.

And even more perplexing (or even downright frustrating) is the fact that despite them saying they are continually assessing my daughter they are patently NOT giving her any reading that is stretching her in any way (apart from the flipping stupid words in the Flipper books - and all that is doing is teaching her to sight read or guess words ). At home we are covering things like 'igh' and split diagraphs (magic e) - is it too much to expect that the school might follow that up

Maizie I just got those stats in a govs meeting, along with the stats for my school. They weren't publically published.

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/bulletin/NurseryWorldUpdate/article/1108559/?DCMP=EMC-CONNurseryWorldUpdate

how hard will the words in the list be? do they expect y1 children to have a good grasp of the alternative ways of writing the phonemes? there seems to be no evidence of this occurring in dd's class.

blackeyedsanta, look at Annex A link on this page;

www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/pedagogy/a00197709/developing-a-new-year-1-phonics-screening-check

-plus lots of other useful info.about the test.

I think / hope this test will force encourage schools to teach phonics properly.

Things will change in the infants in the next couple of years.

Having looked at the word list for the test on the link here, I, as an adult, don't know what the examiners will judge the 'correct' way to read the made-up word 'hild' - is it supposed to rhyme with child, or be short for 'Hilda', the name ( the first thing that crossed my mind). I don't see how there can be a 'correct' way, given these are made-up words anyway.

Pity the poor children, who are being asked to mind-read, as well as read nonsense, in these tests. :(

Sorry - should read 'practice word list for the test' - I assume they'll use another lot of pointless made-up words in the real thing.

You are quite right, breadandbutterfly. If there is more than one sound that the letter, or letters, can represent the teacher administering the test is able to accept any 'legal' letter/sound correspondence. In the example you give either interpretation would be marked as 'correct'

P.S.
Pity the poor children, who are being asked to mind-read, as well as read nonsense, in these tests.

I pity the poor children who can't do them at all as it means that they are struggling to learn to read and some of them may never make it.

BandB- A lot of words in English are hard to read the first time - a child still has to learn how to read them.

Pronouncing the word either of the ways you suggested is correct - and if it was a name in a book you would choose one of them - but any other way is incorrect.

How do you think a child is going to learn to read properly, if they're only expected to read words with simple rules?

It is reasonable to expect a kid who has been at school for 2 years to be able to attempt 'hild'.

And if they can't read it, I'm sure it'll be handled fine. Kids are expected to try lots of things they're not able to do first time.

I do think making children read nonsense words is fundamentally pointless - reading isn't an abstract decodication process - it's about reading real words with meanings in real contexts. Language is about communication. If half the words are nonsense words, then children are taught at a very early stage that anything they read may potentially be nonsense, and communicate absolutely nothing. I don't think that's the right message to teach children - why would anyone bother to learn to read if all they're going to be getting to access by this is potential gibberish? Learning to read to be able to function in a working environment, or an academic environent, or to access great works of literature/ - fine. But learning to read as a kind of little game full of memorising rules = v v dull, except for kids who really like that kind of mental challenge for its own sake (= not many).

Moreover, it fails 70% of children, many of whom (how many, we don't know), who can read just fine, by their own methods, but not by consciously applying the principles of synthetic phonics. These kids may, in some cases, be great readers, but will henceforth be labelled as failures at the age of 5 or 6. and resources misdirected to 'helping' children who don't actually need any help.

So no, I am not in favour of these tests.

Sorry - pants typing - 'decodification'.

of course it is pointless but so are most government tests

Aaargh, too many errors. Apologies; tired typist as well as sticky keyboard.

Oh well, we agree there then, mrz!

The test doesn't fail 70% of the children
but 70% of the children have not been taught to read by their school

We don't know that, as the ability to decode nonsense isn't the same as the ability to read.

The kids won't be labelled failures! The teachers will!

If the test contained Mr Hild would you still object to it?

The reason 70% of kids failed (on average) is that schools are still not teaching phonics. In some schools almost all kids pass the test.

Kids who can't decode a word they haven't seen before, can't read fine.

The tests prove whether or not a child has mastered synthetic phonics, not whether they can read. If they can read by other methods, that is not tested. yet they will still be labelled failures - even if they are great at reading.

I disagree that the teacher will be labelled, not the child (tough agree the teacher may also be labelled). The purpose of the tests is NOT to root out errant teachers, it is to identify pupils in need of remedial reading help. Which will feel like failure to the child. And is a waste of resources if actually, they can read fine, but are 'thrown' by nonsense.

but the ability to decode real words is pretty fundamental to reading and they didn't manage that either