Don't you feel the burning excitement of competition of the phonics check?

[flexybex]

We're now introducing a Y1 equivalent of KS1 SATS/ KS2 SATs / 11+/ GCSEs / A levels for mummies to tutor for / compete / crow about.

God help us over the next few years.

We do a phonic check on the children in our school about every six weeks, just so we know what to teach them next.

no need for any of this stress

I have been reading and asking about this purely because I am interested for MY child. I like to know how MY child is going and compare to the national average. I couldnt give a flying fig what Little Johnny down the road gets. I would like to educate myself in order to help MY child acheive the best they can and I can support them if they need it.

And I will have this same approach with SATS etc. No offence to your child, fo course, or any one elses, just that their scores dont concern me. And I only care about the national average so that I know my child is doing ok.

do the school tell you the results like? I'd forgotten to ask my dd how it went.

dd said that she got them all right. she also said that they had been to france on an aeroplane and the teacher took them for a walk in the woods and they saw real tigers

I can see it going this way too. I think I am naturally competitive and my dd is in Y1. Fought back my natural urge to do some extra phonics work with her in the last couple of weeks as it if she was taught for the test the school won't necessarily identify weaknesses she has. But I wonder if other might have done some extra prep with their offspring

lots of schools have done extra prepping

Really though? I haven't prepped my son at all for this test and I expect the school will be doing all the phonics with him anyway and would inform me should I support him at home. I have never done any phonics with my DS1 although he does read an awful lot (independently). I think the phonics teaching at his school though is pretty good. I wasn't worried as I know my son is a fluent reader and I wasn't disappointed/didn't get any surprises. I would be shocked if any parent would start competing over these (you never know though).

There are posts on MN from parents who were sent home words to practise and many more on TES from teachers who have been putting in extra practise.

I think the problem is not going to be parents being competitive - but parents expecting their child to be taught phonics properly.

Many teachers are struggling with that expectation.

As mentioned on another thread already - a teacher feels that if a child has made good progress they're sad to tell the parent that the child hasn't actually reached the required standard.

Progress is valued more than reaching standards in the current UK system.

I think people are getting hung up on the 32 mark when in fact a child can achieve 32 points plus and still be struggling with certain aspects ... in the case of some of our pupils it was split vowels. They read flute as flut e and shine as shin so I can tell the class teacher this needs to be revisited.

I wouldn't expect most parents to want phonics taught properly. I should imagine many parents don't know what phonics is. (And some parents can't read themselves.) I think wanting your children to be able to read and write is a different thing from wanting them to learn phonics of any sort or look and say. If you don't care lots about the method used you possibly/probably don't care at all about it.

Actually learnandsay most parents do want phonics taught properly and most parents are pretty well informed and most realise that learning to read involves working out the phonic code.

Oh great, where do parents register their love of phonics?

Why would you doubt that most parents want their children to be taught phonics properly? What an odd generalisation

learnandsay wants to opt out of phonics instruction when her child starts school

Because I doubt that most parents know what it is.

What are you basing that on?

No she doesn't!!! She doesn't want her daughter to do "phonic spelling", as opposed to spelling properly.

We had a lot of info on phonics. We had an evening going through it all, and teachers always happy to explain things. Positive way of learning.

It's not based on anything. I just can't imagine that the average parent is anything like as obsessed with the subject as the regulars on mumsnet primary! I don't ever remember hearing any other parents anywhere discussing reading teaching methods, or even knowing what they were.

Now there is a phonics check most parents will know what it is.

And they'll certainly want their child to pass it.

learnandsay Sat 23-Jun-12 18:52:17

Because I doubt that most parents know what it is.

most parents are well informed

learnandsay Sat 23-Jun-12 18:54:00

No she doesn't!!! She doesn't want her daughter to do "phonic spelling", as opposed to spelling properly.

All spelling is phonetic it's how we encode sounds from spoken works into writing so unless you want your daughter to learn to write using Chinese logographs rather than English you really don't have much choice

How odd.

You need phonics IN ORDER to spell correctly.

It could quite as easily be argued that no spelling is phonetic, (unless you speak as you spell.) Spelling is silent and is recollection of the word formation applied to letters on paper. There are no sounds involved only movements.