Phonics Test

[SnowieBear]

DS (6) came back yesterday from school with a slip of paper saying that after being tested against the government's phonic test, he had not reached the standard required and will be receiving additional support with his reading.

DS is a rather good reader and has progressed all the way to stage 9 ORT since the start of Y1. However, I am not surprised he didn't do well at the test, as he finds it difficult to decode words he cannot adscribe meaning to. In general, that's not a problem as he is a very wordy kid, but it was always going to be the spanner in the works for the phonics test.

Am I right to be utterly unconcerned about it? (Well, as utterly unconcerned as someone can be that then goes on to post under the primary education thread...).

The test is to find out whether a child has basic phonics knowledge. It's nothing to be proud or not proud of. And absolutey nothing to do with writing.

But unless your address is very complicated, if your child can read all the words in the phonics check, she will probably be able to rad her own address too.

LittleMiss, it wasn't supposed to be sarcasm. I can't support any introduction of nonsense words. Why not just use obscure English words? The children could then take the new words home and discuss them with their parents. I know this test has the best of intentions at its heart but some people are already using it as a reason to prep children for reading nonsense and that's precisely what we don't need.

I can't support any introduction of nonsense words. Why not just use obscure English words? The children could then take the new words home and discuss them with their parents.
Genuine answer, IME? Because many parents wouldn't know what the obscure words were, and probably wouldn't care. They certainly wouldn't bother looking them up with their DC to extend their vocabulary. :(

Nonsense words, like the ones in Alice, or Edward Lear, or Roald Dahl, or Spike Milligan or Winnie the Pooh..........

You're not teaching them to read nonsense words, you are double checking that they can read. And reading nonsense words doesn't somehow stop them reading real words!

Am I missing something? I just don't understand the problem.

Seeker, some teachers are actually coaching their children in the reading of nonsense. It's great if children can read Lewis Carroll's nonsense. But it doesn't matter if they can't. But it does matter if they can't read their homework.

Learnandsay - you don't have any problem with phonics, you just think teachers are terminally stupid.

how do you know that some teachers are coaching them in the reading of nonsense.

My DSs school practice nonsense words to ensure they can actually decode words they don't recognise rather than relying on guess work. There are many children who get through school unable to actually read properly as use guess work etc to muddle through.

As long as the teachers are also working on reading proper words and improving comprehension then it can't do anything other than help the children surely!

If they can read Lewis Carroll nonsense words then they surely can't have any trouble reading proper words?!

I'd like to see proof of that. But even if it's true, they aren't coaching them in reading nonesense. They are coaching them in reading words. Are you somehow saying that a child would be able to read, for example, the nonsense word Lat, but not Cat? Hin but not Hen? If you can read, you can read, whatever the word is!

Rabbit

Apart from the obvious good practice reading 'nonsense' words gives, it doesn't hurt for kids to play with language. Play with reading. Play with silly, non-existent words.

Ask any creatively minded souls.

Seeker you'd have to go over to TES and ask the teachers what they have done with their lists of nonsense words. hin and lat aren't words. Rabbit, I don't think teachers are stupid. I don't have a problem with sounding words out, either, particularly where the relationship between the word and how it's spelled is straightforward. But I do have a problem with making a universal theory out of the practice.

wanders off in philosophical fog

Um, 'hin' is a word, isn't it?

And 'lat' seems to be allowed in Scrabble...

I know that Hin and Lat aren't words on the list. Please could you explain to me how a child could read Hin, but not Hen, Lat, but not Cat.

I knew someone was going to do that!

I think it's probable that a child who can read the pseudo words hin and lat can probably read cat man pat pin and bin. But I'd rather children were asked to read fez sin droll and other real words that they've probably not encountered but are real. Then they can learn what they mean too.

But the point is that you have to be sure they child has bnever come across the word before. the words you suggest, for example, both my children would have heard loads of times by the time they were the age for this test.

Why on earth are you so insistent on this one? The check is 10 minutes out of the school year!

I'll tell you what I think is rubbish about this test is that it is billed as a 'phonics check'.

Hence the nonsense words - to make sure the child isn't just using memory to 'read' the words.

But, in the 'real' words section, they have to get the correct pronunciation - a phonetically plausible answer is marked wrong.

So it's not a phonics screening, it's a mixture, which is not what it is billed as.

I also think it is highly suspect to have the only primary literacy advisor being someone who sells phonics training courses to schools - definitely a conflict of interest.

Not qt our school it isn't - phonetically plausible is marked right for both.

Yes, Lily, that point about it being a mixture has been brought up before. All in all I think it's just a bit of a bodge with good intentions at its heart and even people who hate it, don't like it, tolerate it or are indifferent to it will just have to hold their noses and get on with it. All in all, I don't think the test itself is a huge problem but its unintended consequences might be. (We'll see.)

It's a mixture of nonsense and real words, but as far as I am aware, phonically plausible is a "pass" for either type.

'If you can read, you can read, whatever the word is'. Seeker, would it be okay for a child to read going to rhyme with boing. Which is why it is nonsense for phonics advocates, such as Greg Wallace (the head, not the veg.man) to say that synthetic phonics is the only '100% successful way of reading a word'.

Reading has everything to do with writing - both are communicating oral language. There is an interplay between reading and writing. Neither should be taught in isolation. If children are going to be continually given pseudo words to decode, they won't know if they are coming or going in their writing. 'Does it look right?' will be an invalid question to ask, because they will have been presented with unnatural letter sequences. Just because educational psychologists use it as a tool, does not validate its use in the classroom.

Nonsense words as used by Lear, Dahl, Milligan, Rosen, Milligan etc. etc. are all used within a context to excite, delight, to add another dimension to their story or poem - they are not used in isolation as a dry 'teaching' tool. They are just reflecting the every day chitter chatter at home which should include nonsense words and talking nonsense which develops a child's language and interest in words.

There seems to be a confusion between what you do to teach children to read, and what goes into a screening test to show whether the vital skill of decoding has been mastered.

You're talking as though this check is more than 5- possibly 10-minutes of the school year!

learnandsay once again you are talking absolute nonsense