Y1 phonics check

[piellabakewell]

You can see it in action here so you know what we are putting them through!

5 minutes of the teacher's undivided attention and a chance to show off

We already do this each term with all our children from Reception through year 1 and into year 2 (for those who have struggled with their sounds). Can't see there being much of a problem!

That's really useful, thanks.

Interesting, one child was given a cross for saying a sound with her accent, while another was given a tick for the same reason. Is it ok or not if accents change the sound?

The child who said blow was bl-aa-w was marked incorrect because although aa-w is a correct interpretation of ow it isn't in the case of this word. I thought this was a phonics test not a word memory test! What nonsense! I thought all the children put up with that gobbledegook admirably.

The kids are asked to read some non-words (alien words) and some real words.

They are told whether a word is a real word or an alien word.

They must not try to make the non words into the real words.

And they must read the real words correctly.

Not sure which bit of that is nonsense.

By definition anything which involves words that don't make sense is nonsense. That's what nonsense means.

I thought you meant the test was nonsense, not the words.

Of course the words are nonsense.

Like On the Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan or Jabberwocky by Lewis Carol.

Kids (in general) love nonsense words and poems.

As long as we don't divert any attention at all away from teaching children to read words which do make sense that's fine, I'm sure. Because almost all of the words in English books do make perfect sense. We want to train our children to read those, not the few which make none.

But we also want to make sure they have the strategies to decode unfamiliar words. And that's what that part of the check is for - to make sure they can.

The goal is for children to be able to read. Any word in the English language.

The majority of the words in the English Language a 6 year old doesn't know - so they might as well be nonsense as real words.

So you are certainly not wasting time by teaching them how to read a word they don't know.

lockets - why? Sitting and reading with her teacher? Is she a bit of a perfectionist?

Reading gobbledegook may be such a strategy. (I suppose it depends on the gobbledegook.) If it has multiple occurences of sounds which can be sounded in multiple ways the nonsense will get progressively harder to interpret. (And since it's gobbledegook there will be no real way of saying who is right and who isn't. Modern languages don't usually have that problem.)

Real languages have context as one useful method of working out the meaning of words. Language after all is about sharing meaning not sharing nonsense.

Lockets, take comfort in the fact that life is all about people in authority asking us to do stupid things. Tell your daughter that it's not a lesson in reading but it's a real lesson in life!

lockets - sounds like she's still really struggling with reading.

The point of this test is for the teacher to realise she's still really struggling and put in a plan of action to help her with her reading.

Hopefully that will happen.

Yes, you did. Sorry.

Are you happy with the interventions she is on to help her catch up?

I really think if being asked to read 20 alien words will put your child of school for a couple of days, then you've got much bigger problems than just her reading.

Hopefully you're wrong, and she won't hate it.

If being asked to read nonsense undermines the child's confidence in reading then that's a serious problem. Presumably lockets knows her own child. I wouldn't be trying to play that issue down.

lockets, I'm sure your DD's teacher won't wait until she's done the test to help her with her reading. Y1 teachers know which children can blend and segment and remember the phonemes without waiting until late June to find out. I hope your DD copes well with the test and continues to build on her progress in reading.

lockets - sorry to hear your DDs having such a tough time.

Like you say, it's not the test that's the problem.

Your DD is struggling to learn to read, and school wasn't giving her the support she needed.

The whole point of this test is to stop other children having to go through what your (and mine) DD went through.

The whole point of this test is to get teachers to acknowledge problems earlier. Which I really think will happen now.

Because otherwise hard questions are going to be asked of them.....

learnAndSay - the problem isn't that lockets DD is being asked to read nonsense words. No child should get upset over being asked to read nonsense words (whether they can read them or not)

The problem is that she's a struggling reader who hasn't been adequately supported in the past. Their is a big problem, which I am in no way downplaying.

But the problem isn't being asked to read alien words.

I must say that my daughter uses context all the time to work out what words mean. Don't forget that knowing how to say a word, or knowing plausible methods of saying words, doesn't tell you what the word means. So the test doesn't really test reading as such. It tests plausibly uttering strings of letters. That's only a small aspect of reading. It's also very important to know what those strings of letters mean.

It's a bit stupid really because language is all about meaning.

I wish that was true of all Y1 teachers, piellabakewell - my own ds's school has two Y1 classes grouped into 3 ability groups, 3 times a week. The middle group (ds's) are learning Phase 3 sounds. Lord knows what the group below them is on. His Y1 teacher doesn't think there is a problem at all, although she acknowledges that 'his decoding does rather lag behind his comprehension'.

Originally, I disapproved of the screening check because, like you, I thought any Y1 teacher worth their salt would already know of any problems. Ds's teacher has taught for nearly 30 years and is blissfully unaware, as are her colleagues.

Look at threads on TES - many teachers are unfortunately similarly unaware - I look forward to the results of the check bringing intense scrutiny to the reading teaching of all these schools.