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 - doesn't understand or doesn't find it rational, given their skill level?

I don't know whether any of you read French, but Jeanne Siaud-Facchin writes very well on children being asked to perform tasks at school that are significantly below their rational, intelligent development (mostly linguistically) and being classed as "failures" or "not understanding", when in fact a dispassionate examination of the task shows it is not rational and that the child cannot get to grips with being expected to execute irrational tasks.

I am not sure how 'rational' 5 year olds can be - if your were talking about 10 year olds than I'd happily accept your argument.

I am also not sure of the connection at the age of 5 between 'skill level' and 'rationality'. Interesting idea though.

I've read about 2/3 of the thread, but don't have time to read more (sorry if that annoys anyone!)

I'm interested in this and I think the test could be helpful (not sure about reporting, though). I've just had ds read through the words (preschool reader, so it's me that has helped him learn)- I told him that some might not make sense - he got 2-3 wrong. Interestingly on the made up words, he read 'thon' using a 'th' as in the word 'the', which I would have called wrong, but then 'th' can be pronounced that way.

Very interestingly, on a couple of made up words it showed he still has a slight problem with p/d - something that isn't picked up with real words - the understanding of the word/context makes him pick the right phoneme. I now know I need to go back to some initial phoneme work.

Overall I think the test is good

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?

Yes, I have encountered several classes full of them. It isn't a problem.

Your ds's way of reading 'thon' is right, Destrier - children are taught that th has two distinct pronounciations.

And of course your feelings here hold weight.

What advice can you give to a parent whose child is being taught mixed methods? We have a parents meeting this week so that school can explain the screening test to us and confirm their teaching methods

Sorry, SharonGless, your question got kind of lost there! A lot depends on the kind of reading material used to practise reading and whether your dc is one of the 20% who struggle - my ds was thrown onto Stage 3 of a Look and Say method, and had stayed there since September Y1. He couldn't read any of the vocabulary and forgot all his Phase 3 phonics. I subscribed to Reading Chest (I could have got decodable readers from my school, but ds is thrilled that they come in a big envelope addressed to him ) and dis some work with Phase 3 phonemes on flashcards (fast and frequent). He is already improving rapidly.

Which is exactly what my exceptional reception class readers did pickledsiblings

Feenie - if your 5 year olds are able to understand the science of phonics (for example, able to read and digest Reading in the Brain), I wonder what they are doing in your class room reading nonsense words?

pickledsiblings - many 5 year olds are extremely rational creatures - they haven't yet had time to be confused by the irrationality of the world around them. Long may they be preserved from it.

Bonsoir doesn't understand

They understand the science of phonics enough to read 'jound' with no hesitation, Bonsoir.

That is not an understanding of the science of phonics, Feenie, and of the transformations that go on within the brain during the different stages of learning to read. Which none of you understand, but fair enough - your business is teaching phonics.

No Bonsoir our business is educating children

Bonsoir, these brain transformations of which you speak are very much open to interpretation - there is no definitive mechanism for how the brain learns to read, only models. Experienced teachers have as much to bring to the table as neuroscientists and psychologists on this one!

Just coming back to the thread after church:

A few thoughts - I didn't read jound to rhyme with found, I looked at it, my brain process was 'that could be like wound, or it could be joust - I wonder which one it is meant to be....' and then started meandering off thinking about other 'ou' sounds, of which there are many.

It is virtually impossible to teach a purely phonics method. You're going to fall down on 'the' for example - that can't be found by blending sounds. So instantly you are introducing the idea that many words can't be found by blending. And then, when a child has grasped the phonics, grasped the fact that many letters/combinations have different sounds, grasped blending, and learned to READ not decode, and moved on totally from that stage, you're asking them to forget everything they've learned since then, in order to pass a spurious decoding test that some jumped up minister thinks is a good idea.

What's worse, you're going to waste time in class that you could be spending either reading fantastic books, or practising other literacy skills, learning to read words which are NONSENSE words, and don't mean anything. What the hell is the point of that?

I asked my 5yo if they practised reading words that don't mean anything, he said they did spend a fair bit of time doing that. Which is just rubbish imo, he can read completely fluently, he does not have a problem with phonics, and this time is wasted.

You might as well ask a very good swimmer to swim 10m in the shallow pool using doggy paddle and then penalise them for doing a bit of front crawl.

in order to pass a spurious decoding test that some jumped up minister thinks is a good idea.

For once - and this doesn't happen very often - this idea is based on very sound evidence and following years of good practice.

Penalise them for getting it wrong?

You want the mark given for guessing a word in a decoding test then?

'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.'

'Non words' are routinely used by experimental psychologists in an attempt to elucidate how we learn to read. To me it makes perfect sense to test phonetic knowledge using nonwords - how else would you do it?

Surely 'rational' DC will accept that as an explanation.

pickledsiblings - you are projecting the rational processes of an adult on to the rational processes of a child. An adult ought to be (and, thankfully, many are) able to take on board many more variables than a child. Rational is not an either/or state.

This is an interesting thread. I am a great proponent of synthetic phonics for teaching decoding, but decoding is only a stage on the way to reading and once stages are past, evaluating how a child managed that stage becomes inappropriate.

The phonics test should only include real words IMO. How about some long words - electricity is nice easy decodable word, and a real one. There are lots more.

It is virtually impossible to teach a purely phonics method. You're going to fall down on 'the' for example

It is actually very simple to teach the using phonics - th represent th sound and e represent the schwa ...

I would suggest your 5 year old can't read fluently if he read joined for jound which is simply a very bad guess not reading.

but decoding is only a stage on the way to reading and once stages are past

Decoding is a strategy for life, not just until a reader reaches a certain stage in reading.

Bonsoir the point is the test is of decoding NOT of reading

"I would suggest your 5 year old can't read fluently if he read joined for jound which is simply a very bad guess not reading."

I would suggest you should not make judgement on my 5 yo who is an incredibly fluent reader.

Jound is not a word. Therefore, an intelligent child may easily try to make sense of it. Is it such a simple concept to grasp? As it happens, 'ou' is one of the sounds with the most options.

Found
Wound
You
Could
Ought
Rough
Though
Trough

There's 8 different options. A 5 year old with a wide experience of reading could very easily know that ou is a sound with many different sounds, and it's not beyond the possible that it could be another sound that they are not aware of.

Nothing to do with fluency of reading. Because jound is not a word. Therefore, reading it as Jown-ed is decoding only.

What's more, you've just proved the idiocy of the test. If you took my 5yos answer, and deduced that he 'therefore was not very fluent at reading', you would be wasting time with interventions to improve his decoding ability, when in fact he is an unbelievably good reader. What he needs is more books to read, not to improve his ability at reading made up words....

And no way do you say to your Y1 class 'in the word the, 'e' represents the schwa....'

"Decoding is a strategy for life, not just until a reader reaches a certain stage in reading."

Not true. It is a starting strategy. My 10yo and 8yo, both level 5++ readers both said they don't use phonics AT ALL in reading. Because they 'know the words'.

QED.