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

I feel v sorry for teachers atm, and this test is part of it - I simply don't believe it will flag up any problems the teachers aren't aware of, and so it is just another stick to beat teachers with.

And from the report of the pilot, it doesn't sound like it 'does what it says on the tin' in any case. And takes about 12 hours to administer - that's 2 days of teaching time!

Perhaps we should all start calling Michael Gove "Michael Guvv" (to rhyme with love and dove!)

My ds's teacher isn't aware of any problems, Lily.

And the government is providing up to £3000 match funding for schools to invest in phonic resources and training.

Feenie - what do you mean? Do you mean they need the test to point out to them which kids need support? In which case, the school needs to address that.

Certainly my kids' teachers have been utterly switched on to how they're doing in reading, and able to spot when there is something that needs addressing.

Lily two educational psychologists insisted my son didn't have a problem because he had a reading age in the teens despite him being unable to write more than his name ...

Yes, I think that lots of teachers and lots of schools need it pointing out to them - you only have to read threads on MN for evidence of that.

Part of the problem is that teacher training establishments still don't teach students effective strategies to teach children to read, and are very resistant to SP.

To both of you, how would you feel if your children did well in the test? And the teachers said "look, he's got 35/40 - no problems there. And so, despite you wanting extra help in some areas, the help was not there, because they had not been 'flagged up'.

I just think that it's up to the teachers and parents, if a teacher is failing a pupil, then that needs flagging up to the school, or to Ofsted if the school don't help. I don't believe getting the entire nation's 5 and 6 yos to read 20 made up words is going to address the problem of poor teachers, and certainly this was what the letter from all those reading and literacy experts said too.

I would point out that decoding is one part of reading, and raise different issues re comprehension, for example, if they were there.

The results will be flagged up to Ofsted who have a new agenda which focuses very closely on reading. And something HAS to be done - schools have had long enough to implement SP teaching properly on their own, and lots are still failing those 20%.

Teachers need better training and resources, not more pressure on them.

The only pressure that is on teachers in this instance is to teach phonics properly.

To be perfectly honest, I don't feel particularly sorry for teachers who haven't been teaching phonics properly and who are now coming under pressure to do so. I don't suppose the parents of the extremely high number of children who leave KS2 with minimal reading skills (some 20%) would have a great deal of sympathy for them either.

All the hand wringing about SEN and EAL and SPLD doesn't wash particularly, either. It is a very rare child who can't be taught the letter/sound correspondences and how to decode and blend. It is what is known as a 'lower order skill'. What the handwringers mean is that they have always assumed that children in these groups aren't capable of learning and they have lower expectations for them. Also, if they have been trying to teach them read by the old Searchlights' methods (which many teachers cling to; 73% according to the evaluation of the pilot) they won't achieve very much because this is very much the group of children that the Searchlights failed.

I have read this thread with great interest! I am knocked out by the 5 y olds who have mastered the entire English lexicon and to whom no word is unfamiliar. Oh brave new world that hath such people in it...

I feel quite ashamed to admit that, as an extremely mature adult with some 50+ years of voracious reading behind me, I still encounter new words and when I do, oh smack my wrists now and put me on the naughty step, I decode and blend them.

It is a test of one aspect of literacy so alone all it indicates is whether a child can or can not decode single words. So a pass would indicate the child is progressing well in phonic knowledge acquisition and a fail would indicate they need some additional support.

When my present class started Y2 in reception I assessed them and 17 out of 30 were put on a program to improve phonics only three still need that support

maizie, you clearly haven't read the thread then!

I presume you're sarcastically referring to my 5yo.

What I said about him is that he has basically moved on from using phonics to decode, and is reading using other skills primarily. So to have to switch these skills off in order to do a purely phonics test is both tricky and counter-productive imo. The experts who did the pilot also say;

"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."

Obviously there are new words to learn, but within a context this is entirely different to pseudo-words.

I'd be pretty worried if my 5yo was flagged up by the test (despite various teachers on here saying he was struggling with phonics, and not reading but guessing ) - he's reading Harry Potter atm and loving it. That seems a much better use of time than learning to read made up words. He's moved on from the 'purely phonics' stage, and so to revert to it for a test is not helpful imo. And is backed up by the evidence from the study.

Just showed that to my five year old and she got nearly all right but rebelled against the non-words a lot.

I think it's a good idea to check that what is being taught is working because I don't think phonics does work for all children. However I'm not sure this will then go on to solve that problem, just identify that there is an issue. And then we'll have to wait another five years to figure it out

What's more, if able readers ARE mistakenly flagged up, it is taking resources away from kids who really do need extra support.

Lily - your DS passed the test. So why would he be flagged up?

It's touching that you have 100% faith that all the teachers in all the country are teaching reading well, but it's just not true.

whomovedmychocolate - dd would have refused to say any of the pseudo-words. She would have been able to think the answers perfectly, but no way would she have said them out loud.

This is the child who cried when she had to choose a picture from a magazine for her geography exercise book, because she 'might have chosen the wrong one'.

She was a fab reader, still is, was ace at phonics, but hated getting anything wrong, and even knowing they were alien words, would not have said them out loud. So the most she could have got would be 20/40. Definite fail. Despite being the best reader in the class, and a level 5 reader/writer at age 8, described as highly gifted by the teacher.

Problem is, she's also i) a perfectionist and ii) very shy. And I know she would have gone into shut-down mode, and possibly refused to do the entire test. And cried. Despite knowing all the answers.

IndigoBell - I only brought ds2 into it, because I was interested in the mechanism by which he got 2 words wrong. Then all the teachers on here jumped on the fact that he said 'joined' instead of 'jound' and started on about how he clearly was not a good reader, etc etc etc

I don't have 100% faith in teachers. I don't, however, think the test will effectively flag up those who need to teach more effectively.

Lily he shouldn't have to learn to read the non words at this stage it should be automatic.
Can I ask is he taught phonics in Y1?

LilyBolero - ah yes DD does that too and says 'don't be silly, I KNOW ALL THIS' in a very disdainful voice. Her teacher must have the patience of a saint because she's bloody irritating frankly.

I'm still smarting from the HV marking her down on the two year check because when asked to put one brick on top of another she constructed an elaborate block structure twenty bricks high but she did not directly place one brick exactly on another though

Sounds like you DD needed help then. Not a phonics intervention, but some other help. School would have obviously already known this, and obviously she would have already been on an intervention to help her with her problems.

And when they would have analysed the results of her phonics test they would have said "yes little lily is havin help with her shyness / perfectionism" then they would have moved on to the next kid.

To add, what I was meaning about 'flagging up ds2' was someone's comment that he was 'poor at phonics and reading in a non-standard way' (is too far down the thread to find the quote).

Lily my SEN son was described by his Y6 teacher as the most intelligent child she had ever taught in 30 years of teaching and he could barely write

Lily, your daughter sounds like an extreme example. I'm sure if you told most children that some of the words were words in a foreign language that they wouldn't understand or that they were names of different types of sweets you could get in other countries they would be happy to read them. It's very strange to suggest that a child will only read a word that they understand. If that were the case, they would have to have an extraordinary vocabulary and would struggle with learning foreign languages .

I don't think the decoding test is really to inform the teachers at the school; it's to inform the inspectors of which schools are teaching reading the most effective way.

mrz - yes they do phonics every week. Including spending a lot of time on alien words....

When he gets home he devours books.

IndigoBell - no, she didn't need help, she just needed a bit of understanding. She is much better now, after we modelled 'getting things wrong' for years and years. We still get the very odd shut down and tears, but she is MUCH better than she was.

At 5 (and an August birthday) - still very much a slave to her perfectionism.