Did only 30% of kids pass phonics test?

[MerryMarigold]

...when it was carried out last year and tested.

We had a letter from school saying as much, and that although the pass rate of the school should be 80%, they would be happy to hit the 30% score when the test was being tested.

Is that really true? I am no big fan of the phonics test. But I can't believe a test which had a pass rate of 30% when it was being developed, is expected to get a pass rate of 80%? No comprendo.

If he sounds out in the wrong order I think he's def got a problem with eye tracking. Ie can't move his eyes smoothly from left to right.

Which is a muscle problem that is easily corrected with daily practice.

We're not talking about accuracy in the context of nonsense words because you can't be accurate where nonsense is concerned because the subject makes no sense. In the case of exams, presumably the question makes sense. So it's a different situation. You're actually talking about paying attention to detail where the details genuinely matter.

Oh wow, thanks for that guys, really helpful indeed and I think you're right. It's always just frustrated/ worried me because I think, "Can't you SEE that that letter is not next to the other one?". This makes total sense and sounds fairly easy (if time consuming) to rectify. We'll definitely be doing some of that daily. How much do you think is enough? 5 words? Ten words?

Sorry learnandsay but we are talking about accuracy in decoding pseudo words (they are not nonsense words)

We're not talking about accuracy in the context of nonsense words because you can't be accurate where nonsense is concerned because the subject makes no sense.

We are talking about accuracy in the context of any words, familiar or unfamiliar. Don't get so hung up about nonsense words, we have taken loads of seemingly 'nonsense' words into our language over the years without anyone batting an eyelid.

To get back to the accuracy issue, what we are talking about here is accurate decoding all through a word from left to right, not how each individual grapheme is pronounced. If the graphemes aren't decoded in the correct order the word will never be accurately read.

What I'd like to ask is: why is so much time spent on teaching the phonic 'rules' and not so much on this training the eye from left to right. Seems like this is ds's problem, and I doubt he's the only one. Is there much 'teaching' on this within the phonic teaching schemes?

In good phonics teaching the child is taught to decode words left to right and to read text left to right but I'm assuming you mean a tracking issue rather than teaching this? In which case the problem is medical not educational and needs input from a specialist optician/optometrist

I agree with someone up thread who said that it is worrying that they are accepting only 30% passing as an ok thing. I think they should expect a higher number than that to pass and if not, what are we doing wrong type approach.

Re teaching to the test, cant it only be taught one way. i.e. in teaching to the test, they are teaching the phonics. Own goal, iyswim?

What I'd like to ask is: why is so much time spent on teaching the phonic 'rules' and not so much on this training the eye from left to right. Seems like this is ds's problem, and I doubt he's the only one. Is there much 'teaching' on this within the phonic teaching schemes?

As mrz says, in good phonics teaching children are taught to track from L to R all through the word so the strength of the tracking muscles should develop automatically as they read more. However, if the school mixes 'other strategies' with their teaching, such as looking for words within words, looking for familiar endings to words or looking at pictures for clues then the children will not be consistently tracking from L to R when reading ( as their eyes are dotting around the page, looking for 'clues') and so may not develop strong L to R tracking. I don't think that some teachers realise how important this is.

I have worked with children at KS3 who find consistent L to R tracking really tiring. A little questioning about how they have been taught to read often reveals the cause of their problem! Practice really does improve them.

Of course, some children may have a more severe physical problem and require more intensive exercise of the eye muscles before they can read comfortably.

Chicken and egg?

Did poor initial reading teaching cause difficulty with left to right tracking - or did poor left to right tracking cause difficulties with learning to read?

I don't know if there have been any studies on eye tracking problems and methods of initial reading instruction.

I expect that's because no-one (influential) has realised quite how important it is to the reading process; particularly as the dominant 'many strategies' practitioners, though paying lip service to the need for R to L tracking, have actively promoted strategies which positively prevent the strengthening of the muscles and the automatic use of all through the word tracking.

I have often wondered if the reported 'dyslexic' symptom of words moving on the page is sometimes (not always) more a case of the child's eyes flicking around the text and the page as they have been taught to do!

AFAIK the dyslexic symptom of words moving on the page is due to a combination of convergence problems (not being able to focus both eyes on a single point for any length of time) and eye tracking problems.

I'm fairly sure words moving / blurring etc is always a vision problem. It is the eyes that don't stay still rather than the text that doesn't stay still.

You know I've had DDs eyes tested with a machine that measures where she was looking at when reading - and she was just looking all over the page. So looking at the letters in each word out of order, and looking at each word out of order. Impossible to read when looking like that.

If a child can read better with one eye closed then it is due to convergence.

If their vision doesn't improve with only using one eye then it's probably eye tracking.

But I think most kids would have both problems at the same time, not just one....

I really don't know, IB. As you said, no-one has done the research.

I do know that I have worked with children who were initially exhausted and rubbing their eyes by the end of one sentence but whose stamina improved hugely as time went by. If the problem was caused by more than just weak tracking muscles they wouldn't have improved.

I do always suggest a thorough eye test in these circumstances, though the suggestion isn't always acted upon.

For a thorough discussion on vision and reading problems see D.McGuinness Why Children Can't Read p162-166

This site is more up to date than the book you quoted.

It says:

By comparison, there are numerous clinical and research studies demonstrating that saccadic eye movements can be trained to ? if not close to ? age normal levels, and that training has a positive effect on academic outcomes, including children with developmental dyslexia. One such article, by the Optomotor Laboratory Brain Research Group in Germany, shows that voluntary saccadic eye movements can be improved by over ten times their natural rate of development following 10 minutes of daily training, using a small hand held device for a period of 3 to 8 weeks

Such a treatment can result in a 50% average reduction in reading errors compared to only a 20% reduction with controls.

There now exists a growing body of evidence to demonstrate that eye movement dysfunction, both in terms of voluntary saccadic control, binocular fixation stability and also saccadic latencies in the younger and older student populations, significantly contributes towards the dysfunction of developmental dyslexia.

Am now off to follow the studies mentioned in 'Why children can't read'.....

That's very interesting. From my own experience:

The 'problem' with tracking existed way before teaching 'other methods'. I say this because ds1 was taught such pure phonics in Yr that he didn't even have a book with pictures. Just sentences (some quite difficult) or lists of words. He's always had this problem. He sees things as a whole. I don't know if everyone does this, and some people 'unlearn' it more quickly or if it is a way of the brain operating in seeing 'wholes' rather than details. It is only this year, in Y1, that the other methods have come in. Whether they have made it worse or not, I don't know. I do know that he can now read to some extent, which has been great for his confidence and enjoyment, which are also key to successful reading (I would have thought). I think he does need to practise the left to right tracking though and we need to go back to reading some single words rather than stories and books.

Maverick - just back from talking with my SENCO.

She has started 10 very poor Y5 readers on an eye tracking program - and half of them can't do it.

Ie they can't follow letters moving (slowly!) left to right across a screen.

Ie they can not move their eyes smoothly left to right.

There is a thread on TES/primary about individual schools and their results. It seems the results are quite mixed and some are indeed worrying.

It seems the results are quite mixed and some are indeed worrying.

Indeed. And what is very worrying is that a number of the teachers with poor results are reassuring themselves by saying that they know their children are better than that because they can read for meaning...

You cannot get the full meaning of a passage unless you read it accurately. This may seem unimportant for 6 y olds reading predictable text, but for 16 y olds reading GCSE exam questions it is pretty crucial.