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

the letter wa signed by the following people;
David Reedy, United Kingdom Literacy Association and

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

Professor Robin Alexander, Director, Cambridge Primary Review

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

Professor Trisha Maynard, Chair, TACTYC and Director of Research Centre for Children, Families and Communities, Canterbury Christ Church University

Wendy Scott, President, TACTYC

Graham Trousdale, Chair, Committee for Linguistics in Education (CLIE)

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

Mary Bousted, General Secretary, Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL)

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

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

Chris Keates, General Secretary, NASUWT

Philip Parkin, General Secretary, Voice

Matthew Martin, CEO, College of Teachers

Miles Berry, Senior vice Chair, NAACE

Simon Gibbons, Chair, National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE)

Penny Tyack, Programme Director and founder of Reading Quest.

Rona Tutt, Chair, National Literacy Association

Lorraine Petersen, Chief Executive, National Association of Special Educational Needs (NASEN)

"actually what the pilot did flag up was that lots of schools weren't teaching phonics effectively and that some still encouraged guessing."

You're completely wrong, the study said that if the test was to encourage systematic phonics being taught in schools, they 'already did'.

They encouraged the Government to rethink the test completely.

This is the text in full; I have emboldened the bits that back up my thoughts;

Dear Secretary of State

An open letter regarding the ?phonics check? for six year olds in English primary schools

On Monday 19 September Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, released the independent report regarding the pilot of the phonics test for six year olds which is to be imposed on English primary schools in June 2012.

Mr. Gibb said ?This study finds that the check will be of real benefit to pupils but takes just a few minutes to carry out and is a positive experience for most children.?

However this statement is at variance with several of the report?s findings. Many of our original fears have been confirmed by the evaluation report and the undersigned remain deeply concerned about the imposition of this test on all schools in England.

The reports finds, for example,that 54% of respondents disagreed that the check accurately assessed the decoding ability of pupils with EAL, 65% disagreed with regard to pupils with speech difficulties, 67% disagreed with regard to pupils with special educational needs and 72% disagreed with regard to pupils with language difficulties. Yet these categories of children are the very ones who are in most need of identification. Thus the test fails in its main purpose.

The results will be ?high stakes? as they will be collated centrally through RAISEonline and used by Ofsted when inspecting schools. Research shows that high stakes tests have a narrowing affect on the curriculum and in this case is likely to have a detrimental effect on areas such as enjoyment, comprehension and wider reading.

The claim that the test will only take a few minutes is flatly contradicted by the report which states that the average time for preparation and administration was 15.5 hours and even longer in large schools. This is equivalent to three days teaching. How will 6 year olds benefit if their teacher is otherwise engaged with the check and may also be out of class for this time or more?

If the intention of the check is to encourage primary teachers in England to teach phonics systematically the pilot informs us that almost all already do so.

Finally, the evaluation of the pilot informs us that 72% of schools experienced difficulties in relation to the use of pseudo words and that some able readers were confused. This confirms our previously expressed worry that the use of a test of only the decoding aspect of reading could actually harm standards in the longer term, with able readers mistakenly identified as needing further teaching of phonics and being held back as a result.

The government is proposing to spend millions of pounds of taxpayers? money every year on a test which will increase workload, undermine teaching time, fail in its core purpose of accurately identifying children?s needs in reading and is unnecessary in promoting the already present teaching of phonics.

In the light of the findings from the evaluation of the pilot we are sure that ministers will be reconsidering the need for the phonics test for 6 year olds. The signatories of this letter would welcome an opportunity to discuss how teacher assessment of reading would identify and help young readers who are slow to start.

In the meantime we would appreciate any clarification you can give on the questions and issues outlined in this letter.

And it is signed by the people listed in the previous post.

I can't speak for the other teaching unions but the ATL is against it because it

demonstrates government?s lack of trust in teachers? abilities and professionalism

will lead to a wealth of data that will not raise standards nor be useful for parents

is an increase in bureaucracy and a waste of money in a time when government needs to prioritise its spending on resources for teaching.

which I pretty much agree with

That is the whole point Lily. Almost all schools claim to be teaching phonics, and mostly they aren't. They mostly don't even know enough to realise what they're teaching isn't phonics.

And this test is unfortunately necessary to encourage them to teach phonics properly.

Your child is a good reader, and no one is saying he isn't. This test isn't about your child though. It's about the 20% of kids who never become good readers.

Have some sympathy for them. Those failed kids are disasters waiting to happen.

Lily, how does he get on when reading a text with a lot of unusual names or place names.

I read with year 6 children, and find that some of them, despite being very good readers, guess wildly at the pronounciation of unfamiliar places such as Framlingham, or Daventry, which they have obviously never heard spoken.

IndigoBell, the pilot showed that those readers were not being flagged up by the test though, and if able readers ARE being, it is lose-lose - the intervention is going to the wrong kids.

the government have responded by putting pictures of aliens on the pseudowords

choccypig - pretty well, though not when we went to Anglesey....

In what way did the pilot show that poor decoders weren't being flagged up by the test?

Your child passed the test. I can't imagine any situation in which children who are good at decoding get put on a reading intervention because of this test.

Lily my son is hyperlexic ... he could read the Financial Times in nursery but he still had huge gaps in his spelling ability because he never needed phonics and everyone (including me) thought it didn't matter because he was such an amazing reading when in fact he had SEN

reader not reading

Hi I haven't read all of this thread so don't know if this has come up already, but looking at the sample paper on the DFES website two words that came up were 'starling' and 'scribe' - my daughter may well be able to decode these words but I don't know of many year 1 kids who would know what a starling or a scribe is/ are so presumably these kids would assume they are nonsense words? Also one of the 'fake' monsters is called an etc - so some might assume this DOES mean something? Seems some odd choices from the myriad of words they could choose from - or do they learn the meaning of words such as scribe early on at prep schools in case they need one for their 7+?!

From the report;

"Three quarters of those surveyed felt that the Check accurately assessed phonic
decoding ability overall for their pupils. Agreement was highest (84%) for pupils
with strong phonics skills, but lower for pupils with weaker decoding skills (61%).
Less than half of respondents agreed that the Check accurately assessed the
decoding ability of pupils with EAL (46%), with speech difficulties (35%), with
SEN (33%) and with language difficulties (28%). Around a third of respondents
held neutral views around whether the Check was a good way of measuring the
capabilities of Year 1 pupils in these groups. These issues were mirrored in case
study findings and, in addition, about a quarter of case study interviewees
mentioned that they felt the test was not age appropriate as the standard may be
set too high for some of the younger or lower ability pupils.
"

mrz, sorry your ds has SENs.

"Almost half of schools (43%) indicated that the Check had helped them to identify
pupils with phonic decoding issues that they were not previously aware of. Just
over half (55%) of schools surveyed and many teachers from case study schools
felt that the Check had not helped them to identify these issues. This was
particularly the case with smaller schools. This is linked to the issue identified
earlier: schools would like to use the Check to inform teaching and planning but
felt that the Check needed to be designed in such a way that it can do so."

Between 23 and 29% of surveyed schools felt the experience was negative for
pupils with speech or language difficulties, other SEN and weak phonics skills,
mirroring the findings in relation to the accuracy of the Check for assessing
phonics ability. Those with weaker phonic skills, speech difficulties, SEN - and to
a lesser extent EAL - were less likely to have found the Check a positive
experience. Pupils who had been told it was a 'test' expressed the most anxiety
overall.

" One lead teacher noted complications with a particular pupil who was a very good
reader but had speech and language difficulties which meant his speech was unclear,
meaning that in a different context she could have asked him questions around the content
of what he was saying but in the Check situation this had not been possible:
I very often don't understand what he says but I can ask him questions about the content and
then know that he's understood what he's read. With the test he's saying the word and I'm
thinking did he read it right? I don't know (CS18, Lead teacher)
"

Don't be sorry Lily it makes him who he is. What I'm sorry about was that I didn't realise earlier he had a problem with phonics so we could work to correct it.

He achieved level 6 in his KS2 maths and science and level1 in writing

" At least seven case study schools and three survey schools in open comments raised
the point that the Check should be looking at comprehension in addition to decoding ability;
therefore words should be used in context. This applied equally to the more advanced
readers - who often searched for a known 'real' word - as well as those with weaker
decoding skills. For example, one school commented:
"

yy I understand that mrz, I felt very sorry that I had not picked up ds2's hearing loss which led to him having a significant speech delay sooner. Happily it has more or less resolved, and comes and goes, but I did feel bad that we didn't pick it up sooner.

Comprehension checks are made formally in Y2 but again these are things schools should be doing automatically without being told but then the government would have to trust teachers

oops, the monster is an ECT but you get my gist? Seems the test was poorly thought out and could be confusing, a worry for teachers who are already under-resourced and under a lot of pressure? If phonics is the best method of teaching kids to read (and I suspect it is) why not spend the money on ensuring that all teachers are thoroughly trained in the teaching of it and the classrooms are properly resourced. My DD's school has a daily phonics lesson, grouped by ability and I think they use Ruth Miskin scheme books in the classroom, but because they have no money, they send home old ORT books. Teachers need better training and resources, not more pressure on them.