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

Thank you rumpeta.

I agree rumpeta about how the discussion degenerates. There is an irony to SoundsWrite asking 'Isn't Rosen rude?' after some of the previous posts.

MaizieD, to follow your arguement - Nick Gibb, chartered accountant specialising in corporate taxation with KPMG, member of parliament; Michael Gove, journalist, member of parliament. The same question you asked of the signatories could be asked of them 'When you look at their backgrounds, where does their 'expertise' on the initial teaching of reading come from?'

It comes from their advisor's!

Michael Gove has been promoting phonics since before this govt was even in power.

He has wisely taken advice from well informed experts.

I was speaking to Tom Burkard of Promethean Trust (Dancing Bears et al) well before this govt came in to power and he was telling me that Gove knew all about phonics - and would do something about it.

Lily was picked upon inaccuracies, not gratuitously picked on.

And, as I am so often ignored on MN, I'm not trying to be princessy here or say my posts were particularly important, but some questions I asked in trying to understand where Lily was coming from remain unanswered. So I have to agree about the thread being unmannerly in places, but would attribute that to all posters.

Just a minute - no one has picked on Lily, and I object to being told I have and ought to be ashamed of myself.

For anyone who can still follow the thread of a discussion, Maizie pointed out (as I had) that the signatories in Lily's important letter were not all they seemed. She then asked When you look at their backgrounds, where does their 'expertise' on the initial teaching of reading come from?

She was immediately answered by several posts, all claiming to be 'expert' in medicine, etc - it's nothing to do with being rude to Lily.

It's something often claimed when all in a discussion is lost, however. Only one or two posters began 'FFS-ing' and 'you're wrong-ing' though, quite some time ago. I suggest Zebedee and Rumpeta that you reread at least some of the discussion.

OK so I've upset Lily by criticising her child's decoding ability. I'm sorry for being so cruel as to suggest that joined isn't a plausible attempt at decoding jound (and remember it is a decoding screening test) but if a child in my class did the same I would be investigating further to see if it was a one off or something they did frequently. The child isn't looking at the letters in the word, isn't tracking left to right, isn't using phonic knowledge ... and I would tell the parents exactly the same as I've said to Lily. I've seen too many children failed by not being truthful.

"...if a child in my class did the same I would be investigating further to see if it was a one off or something they did frequently. The child isn't looking at the letters in the word, isn't tracking left to right, isn't using phonic knowledge ... and I would tell the parents exactly the same as I've said to Lily. I've seen too many children failed by not being truthful."
Exactly! For far too long in too many schools we've seen the 'problem' passed on to other teachers with the consoling words to the parents 's/he'll be all right. Some children take longer to 'click'.' - only for it to emerge later that the 'problem' hasn't gone away and, in the meantime, no-one has done anything about it.
Well, this phonics screening check may not be the answer to everyone's prayers but it will prompt many a more searching question about individual children and whether enough is being done for them and about the teaching practices of many schools.

mrz you didn't upset me by commenting on ds2's phonics ability. Because actually I'm confident enough in his abilities not to get worried by what some people on a talk board who have never met him, let alone heard him read, think.

Bearing in mind he is 5, has/had moderate hearing loss and a significant speech delay, I'm not worried about him making a slip on 1 or 2 words - because actually I and his teachers know how good he is on phonics. Given that he got 18/20 'made-up' words right, I don't think he's doing that every time he encounters a new word.

Fine, if you would keep an eye on that if he was in your class. But you would have all sorts of other information on him, including KNOWING him and KNOWING how he approaches reading.

But honestly, I couldn't care less what some random people on the internet think about his abilities or lack of.

No-one on this thread has managed (or even really tried) to argue convincingly that short nonsense words are a better test of a child's decoding ability than long real words.

And I remain utterly convinced of the validity of LilyBolero's original point.

Very fluent young readers (and gifted pupils in general) are often ill-served by standardised educational expectations of attainment and erroneously flagged as failures/not understanding. This is a huge and well-documented issue in France, where standardised levels, throughout education until 15, are much more of an entrenched problem than in the UK.

"And, as I am so often ignored on MN, I'm not trying to be princessy here or say my posts were particularly important, but some questions I asked in trying to understand where Lily was coming from remain unanswered. So I have to agree about the thread being unmannerly in places, but would attribute that to all posters."

Edith, do you know what - the reason I didn't answer every question in your posts was because I was slowly losing the will to live, when half my posts were either gratuitously misunderstood, or twisted round to say something I didn't say, or ridiculed.

So I'm sorry if you asked questions that I didn't give my thoughts on.

In answer to the last question, if you're at all interested in what I think, I think doing it on a rolling basis would be better than a one-off test, with all the connotations of 'my child must pass the phonics test' - that would provide more information than a one-off snapshot - it would show who was improving for one thing. And I'm sure that most good teachers are doing that anyway, even if not as a test. I don't like official testing of little ones at all. I'm in 2 minds even about the KS2 SATS.

As far as 'testing them at 5 or 6', in some countries, eg Canada, they absolutely don't start reading at all until 6 or 7. And by age 11 I believe they have overtaken English children.

I wouldn't be happy with Lily's suggestion that the children should take the test "when they are ready". The danger is that the struggling readers will never be ready, instead of being given the help (or better teaching)needed as soon as possible.

The point is that this should be a test of the SCHOOL, not the child. If the child "fails" the test, it is up to the school to improve their teaching to get them up to where they should be.

Obviously, there will be the occasional child who is struggling for reasons other than bad teaching, (hearing or sight problems, some other special needs etc.), but looking at the class and school results, and comparing against similar cohorts will show up a multitude of sins and good practices.

This is what I said on that;
"I think a test administered at the point the child is deemed 'ready' would be good - with a maximum age cut-off - so a child who is doing well with their phonics could take it early, and if they got above a certain level, would not need to do it again"

Which avoids the 'child never being ready'. A rolling programme would be better imo.

choccy1pig - I agree that this test should be a test of the school, not the pupils. It therefore needs to be utterly foolproof as a test of pupils' reading ability, whatever stage they are at. And LilyBolero's example of a fluent reader searching in his vast oral lexicon for a possible meaningful reading of "jound" (which is the rational response to the written word) is a clear example of the test not being foolproof.

You know, there is a real illogicality on this thread.

According to the primary school teachers on here, only anyone who teaches reading is qualified to have an opinion (unless they agree with them). Even the educationalists writing a letter of deep concern to the government are denigrated, on the basis of a google search (which is in itself a bit of an illogicality - parents can't have an opinion on a reading test that is affecting THEIR child, but teachers can dismiss a whole body of people on the basis of a 1 minute google search....).

So, they are saying 'Listen to us, we are primary school teachers, we teach reading, we KNOW about these things.'

But what is the test for?

To check that primary school teachers are teaching phonics properly - or so they have said. And they talk about the 'huge numbers of teachers, failing children by not teaching them phonics properly'.

So only primary school teachers should have an opinion, but a large proportion of them don't understand phonics, or are teaching it wrong....???

Doesn't seem logical to me.

I wasn't ridiculing, I was genuinely interested in what you said about using your knowledge of Latin to read unfamiliar words, and so wondered how you would tackle a transliteration of a non-European language (ie if you did yourself fall back on phonics, or were unable to attempt it).

Bonsoir: you do not need long words to demonstrate phonic ability, which is why length is beside the point. What is important is that the word is decoded, and novel words ensure that it is decoding that is being used.

Edith, thank you, no I didn't mean you were, but I felt ridiculed by some of the teachers on this thread, took me right back to the playground, with all the 'in-girls' ganging up and chortling with laughter as they taunt you.

Believe it or not, I have spent the entire thread trying to put my point across in a clear way - not always succeeding at all, and often little things (like the sodding word 'jound') have been blown up out of all proportion to prove that I have no right to an opinion, and what's more, my child isn't reading, just guessing! Which is frustrating - it was a slip he made, we all make mistakes! And he is 5!!! Likewise, the constant arguing that I am 'wrong for suggesting teachers should use mixed-methods', when I said nothing of the sort, what I said was that despite being taught purely phonics, ds2 NOW had developed a range of methods. Which is true, and is my observation, but this was somehow twisted to be me saying 'all teachers should teach reading using mixed methods'. When I said nothing of the sort.

Anyway.

Using Latin - well, that was in response to some of the long words posted - so, for example, "otorhinolaryngologist" - I know from latin (which I have to warn you is utterly rusty, so would check it as well), rhino is 'nose', 'oto' I think is ear, 'laryn' is throat - ologist - studier of, so I would guess that that word is someone who studies ears, noses and throats. And then my knowledge of medicine would suggest that was likely, as I know that there ARE ENT specialists.

And then I'd look it up...which I'll do now....and discover it is; "A physician specializing in ear, nose, and throat diseases. Also known as otolaryngologist."

So that was a pretty good deduction.

Non-European languages - having done some Russian, and Hebrew, I think once you're outside of the 'European' group of langauges, neither 'English phonics' nor Latin will help you much! (Though I'm no linguist, just quite interested in the etymology of words!). Because the rules are just different! Sometimes (as in Russian) the alphabet is similar but different, sometimes completely different!!! And then in something like Cantonese, the whole construction of the language is different.

pickledsiblings - children do not forget the first phoneme by the time they get to the last! That's hilarious! How do you think children with languages that have basic words (French, German) with many more syllables than English manage? Or do you think English-speaking children are afflicted with a peculiar condition that prevents them from coping with multi-syllable words?

"What is important is that the word is decoded." What is important is that children get to a point where they understand the meaning of what they read. Which is why decoding nonsense is not important and might even be something of a red herring.

What is important is that children get to a point where they understand the meaning of what they read.

But they can't do that until they have decoded the word. The most efficient way to check that children can fully decode is the use of a totally unfamiliar word.

"Lily, please stop playing the victim. As I have already said, no one was taunting you - comments made ridiculed the right of people, including some union leaders, to call themselves 'experts'. No one was getting at you - unless you are calling yourself a reading expert now?"

Not playing the victim, I felt like that, other posters also noticed it.

The reason I quoted the list of names on the letter was because you said I had found "1 person who was against the test".

Posts such as;
"(Oh, and I also have 2 able children, one with mild ASD ... so I am ideally placed to comment on what is best for ALL children on the basis of my own - unusual - children ....)"

"OK so I've upset Lily by criticising her child's decoding ability. I'm sorry for being so cruel as to suggest that joined isn't a plausible attempt at decoding jound (and remember it is a decoding screening test)"

"Maizie pointed out (as I had) that the signatories in Lily's important letter were not all they seemed."

"I read a book about appendicitis once, so I think you'll find I am a qualified surgeon. "

"And for THAT you want the whole thing derailed, thereby missing the chance of making sure that schools stop failing ALL these children? Because, as you perceive it, one child DIDN'T make a mistake - even though several experts have told you he did, and how to learn from it?"

"Lily would you recommend this flexibility in other tests?

Instead of taking her driving test in a car can my daughter do it on roller skates?"

Just a few of the comments....taking that last one for example, the poster chose to make a ridiculing reply, instead of actually reading what I'd written - ie that perhaps some flexibilty of timing could be looked at.

I object to being told I'm playing the victim - actually not, I just stayed off th thread once the ridiculing stepped up, until another poster spotted it.

Little bits of sarcasm such as "Lily's important letter" are belittling and designed to ridicule.

But the fact that Lily's son got a word wrong doesn't mean that the test isn't foolproof (though it might not be, but for quite different reasons). It means he made a mistake. And it tells us something about how secure his reading is. None of the adults reading this thread would read 'jound' as 'joined'. So Lily's son is still not a fully proficient reader. And that's OK, because he's only 5. But it does raise the question of whether he is being encouraged to guess at words that might look a bit like that rather than trust his phonic knowledge. If he trusted his phonic knowledge, there would be no way he'd make that guess.

I don't understand what all the fuss about nonsense words is. Children need to learn to read words they've never heard before, whether they are English words or words from other languages. If they cannot face the possibility of there being a word that they don't know, they have other issues that need to be dealt with. 'Jound' is a perfectly plausible English word, so there would be no reason for a child to try to turn it into another word.

Of course children need to get meaning from reading, but before they can get meaning from a word they've never seen before, they need to be able to read it.