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...).

learnandsay it was not a READING test it was a phonics screening check!

Well interesting Bonsoir not one of our excellent readers inverted strom to storm

...and I noticed 'bime' because that is what dd2 used to call snails when she was a toddler

The picture cue was there to alert the children to the fact that the word was not a 'real' one. This is quite different from encouraging children to look at a picture in order to guess at what the word might be, e.g. child is stuck on the word 'house' and is directed to look at a picture of a house to find out what it might be. Obviously, in the case of the Phonics Check the picture would be absolutely no help whatsoever in this way.

I believe that the 'aliens' pictures were put in to allay the fears of people who thought that children might try to make the psuedo-words into real words.

The Check developers seem to have been in a lose, lose position here

A bit odd though, after spending two years telling DCs not to ever use picture cues, to expect them to use one.

seeker - intelligent people tend to question whether tests are fit for purpose before paying attention to the results of those tests.

Lots of examinations are not fit for purpose ie they do not in fact tell us what they purport to tell us about a person's skills or abilities.

I could imagine reading 'bime' as 'beam', as well as 'byme' - but then I am half French.

Funny you should say that elibean, as I have been racking my brain for a one syllable word where i-e is pronounced ee and the best I could come up with was 'crêpe de Chine'.

Bonsoir they weren't picture cards! In fact there weren't any cards. The check was a book with 4 words per page.

and it wasn't a TEST!

I would have thought a child who cannot get 32/40 in that phonics test is exceptionally unlikely to be skilled at phonics and ALL it tests is very basic phonics - not intelligence or ability to read and comprehend a sentence, or really complex phonics rules and exceptions. So what's the huge problem with it, Bonsoir????? That really stupid teachers will think that they've done their job when they can get everyone passing that test??????

But I can't see anything wrong with this test. As far as I know, the children were told that some of words were the names of aliens, and the pictures of aliens were just to remind them.

It followed the method of standard diagnostic check used by Ed Psychs and others working with children to identify reading difficulties for decades.

Or it doesn't test, as the case may be... Mrz, what's the difference between a test and assessing where the gaps in someone's knowledge are?

i'm glad that they ascribe a reason of "an alien's name" to the nonsense words.

The government were very clear that the check is the early identification of children who may need extra support with reading. If used correctly it is a diagnostic tool

also, i want to know if the alien names had capital letters?

They didn't have capital letters because they weren't the alien's name.

oh.
i thought that was the idea.
what were they described as then?

I just tried them on my 11 year old- I told him to read them as fast as possible to see whether he unconsciously turned them into real words- interestingly he turned kigh into king- but didn't do the same to any of the others.

But I'm 42 and still come across new words - 6 year olds do not know if words are real or not (assuming they are phonetically plausible). I'd be very worried by a child refusing a word because it 'wasn't real'.

What was that old game... Call my bluff?

Of course it's a test. Though whether it tells anyone much of any use is doubtful.

The exact wording we were supposed to use was
In this booklet, there are four words on each page. I will tell you at the start of each page whether they are real words that you may have seen before or words for imaginary creatures."

the idea was the words were imaginary creatures and the equivalent to cat, dog, bird rather than a proper noun.

were they delivered as ailian names? my dd seemed to know they where nonsence words with a picture an alian so she new they were not real words.

alien even

Throm - i would have.
I was that child

ah, i see. that makes sense.

i used to like making up creatures and stuff.