The new Y1 phonics screening check

[SoundsWrite]

The government's new phonics screening check is to be launched in England in June.
The results of the test will be given to the parents of each individual child but each individual school's results will not be made public.
What is the view on Mumsnet? Do you think the results should be made public or not? Either way, why or why not?
You can find out more about this test by going to the DfE site: www.education.gov.uk/schools/teachingandlearning/pedagogy/a00198207/faqs-year-1-phonics-screening-check

mrz - the point LilyBolero is making, and with which I strongly agree, is that a child who is a long way past the decoding stage of learning to read (it is one stage of three major stages) may well find it difficult to revert to the decoding stage for the test.

Mrz the point is that if your child is beyond the decoding stage by and large, you're asking them to switch off all their reading skills. Is this a good use of time for the most able - to switch off their reading skills? I suggest not!

Now I think about it, I don't know why the decoding test cannot use exclusively real words, but use very long words that children are less likely to have memorised as a test of their decoding skills. My DD learned to decode very long (four and five syllable) words in French very quickly thanks to her phonic knowledge. But they were real words.

we teach ough can represent the sound or , oa , oo and ow and to try the alternatives as they read through the word

in the test when it comes to a non word any of the above would be acceptable

yes I would expect them to use their decoding skills in a decoding test just as I would expect them to walk not run in a walking race.

So any phonically plausible pronunciation of a written nonsense word is acceptable in the test, but an attempt to make rational sense of a written nonsense word based on a child's knowledge of real spoken language is not acceptable?

The problem is when young children switch off their decoding skills they start to make errors and guess at all unfamiliar words or skip over them. Decoding needs to be there as a back up when they meet such words even as adults.

You are asking children to put their real knowledge of language to one side for the test?

Once children have learned to walk, their tolerance for crawling to get where they want to go is understandably low...

If I asked you to read a word and told you it wasn't a real word and you then read it as a real word ...

mrz - phonics is a fantastically useful back up for reading unfamiliar words as adults. But we work on the rational assumption that the words are real ones that are encountered in language as used around us.

Many (not all) children don't like being asked to do nonsense tests. Our ability to perform tasks is rooted in our belief that they are rational and meaningful.

No we are asking them to use one of their skills

If we were having a crawling race and one child decided to run what would it tell us?
I have a child who can't crawl and has never mastered the skill, this impacts greatly on coordination for writing etc...

Bonsoir would you work on the assumption that all words are real words if you were told these words aren't real

It would tell us that the child who ran had no tolerance for the intermediary skill of crawling because they were way beyond it.

It is a mysterious misconception sometimes encountered in the educational establishment that you can accurately evaluate a developmental milestone that has been achieved a long time previously and that a child has moved on from.

What's more, in real life we get feedback from the context - in a test like this, there is no feedback - so taking the ou sound, irl you might say 'the sea was ror, the sea was row, the sea was ruff! Bingo, rough=ruff' and then remember it - using a memory tactic...

In a test there is no such feedback. All very well saying 'they are alien words' but you are essentially asking a child to waste time, and to turn off all the skills they have developed.

Children's natural and rational inclination is to see words as a written representation of sounds. It's all very well telling them, but they know (and this is actually what most teachers and parents teach) that written language is a representation of oral language that they already master.

No in the case of my son (the child who ran) it would tell me that there was a problem and that important skills had not been developed and that he had major problems ...

Lily I don't think you can get much clearer feedback than the teacher saying this isn't a real word

You really should all read Stanislas Dehaene because he explains so well the transformation of an illiterate brain to a literate one, and gives examples of the tests you can perform on illiterate and literate brains and the different results you get...

Bonsoir my extremely able reader when faced with a non word test decoded the words but commented after each one
so when faced with chiffusion she said it's like chiffon and confusion joined
blavoursome it's like flavoursome
drecial it's like special with a d instead of a s

and I read Stanislas Dehaene on your earlier recommendation

Then you know that the child who does as LilyBolero's does is not wrong, but rational

Bonsoir, your argument really falls down for me because I read the word 'jound' as 'found' as did, I am sure, every other able reader on this thread.

The reason for not including eg 5 syllable real words may be because of the potential variation in working memory capacity amongst this age group. A decoding test must test only that and not be influenced by WMC constraints.

No Bonsoir I know a child who does as Lily's child does hasn't understood the task they have been asked to do.

Of course I mean I read 'jound' to rhyme with 'found'

pickledsiblings - you are a lot older and a lot more advanced in your language and reading capabilities than a 5 year old. On this thread, we are all old enough to understand the science of phonics and to use it to teach a child. Do you think that a 5 year old has that skill? They are not in the same phase of language and reading development.