DD failed her phonics screening - any advice?

[formerdiva]

I know there's another big thread on the screening, but it mostly seems to be debate about whether the test is worthwhile or not. I just wanted a bit of advice about what my strategy should be? To give some context:

I trust the school - the teaching staff seem good, and the other children don't seem to have an issue
They've told me that DD is immature (she's an August baby, but to be fair her friends who are summer babies don't seem to have issues)
She doesn't concentrate or focus very well at all
We do her homework every day and read to/with her every day

I feel really anxious for her. Any advice about what our next steps should be?

Without non-word decoding, you can't tell if they are working out from sounds, or just have a very good memory. If it is the latter they start to struggle when words get longer and or the vocabulary increases. For example how do you read a scientific paper if you can't break complex words into chunks?

That is fine for a diagnostic test if you have a child that you suspect has a fantastic memory for sight words but no decoding skills, though, I think it would be quite an unusual child for the lack of decoding skills not to be obvious - but for a phonic programme for general use with all children?

mrz As regards turquoise, it depends what you read :
www.tes.co.uk/ResourceDetail.aspx?storyCode=3002648
is what we use.

maisied This would imply for me that teaching 'other strategies' seriously impairs a child's ability to work out what unfamiliar words 'say'.'

Why are we concerned about what 'unfamiliar words 'say'? Inevitably, a good reader on white / lime books will not only be thinking about decoding using phonics (i.e. what the word 'says') - they will be working out the meaning of the word.

Even when we (as adults) meet unfamiliar words, we may DECODE using phonics to find out what the word sounds like, but the context will give us clues to the meaning. And surely, reading is for meaning, not, as someone mentioned previously, how we read a lesson in church?

That is fine for a diagnostic test if you have a child that you suspect has a fantastic memory for sight words but no decoding skills, though, I think it would be quite an unusual child for the lack of decoding skills not to be obvious - but for a phonic programme for general use with all children?

All children need screening for this regularly - good schools would do this kind of check termly, or more often, anyway. Any Letters and Sounds assessments have always included this kind of check, and as mrz says it's a standard check used by Ed Psychs.

Why do they? If they have been taught phonics and you have established that they can blend the sounds together to make words, then they are not going to lose this skill - are they?

Yes, I know its in a checks by EPs, but children are usually sent to EPs if there is a problem.

The child that reads strom as storm is obviously not decoding the word but that is not to say that they couldn't decode it in for example maelstrom. However, reading a few non words wrong in the phonics check is unlikely to impact at all on a fluent reader.

Why do they what? Some children revert to sight words and get lazy - using pseudo words makes sure that they are 100% looking at the word and using the sounds, instead of looking at say the beginning and end and guessing. There is no hiding when using pseudo words - they are either using their phonic knowledge or they aren't.

maisied This would imply for me that teaching 'other strategies' seriously impairs a child's ability to work out what unfamiliar words 'say'.'

Erm..yes. Spot on!

Why are we concerned about what 'unfamiliar words 'say'?

Heaven help us all. And you are a teacher

Inevitably, a good reader on white / lime books will not only be thinking about decoding using phonics (i.e. what the word 'says') - they will be working out the meaning of the word.

Well, dear, you just go on being agrieved that your 'good readers' aren't reaching the standard in the Phonics check. It is absolutely clear that you cannot see past the end of your nose Y1 to when all these early high fliers reach secondary school completely unable to work out unfamiliar words. Why should that be any concern of yours, anyway? You've done your bit and the Great God 'Meaning' has been pleased with you.

What is this nonsense about nonsense words? Surely, surely, surely any young reader of 5 or 6, however fluent, will come across words in their reading that they don't know and can't ascribe meaning to? Place names, surnames, unfamiliar given names, technical words they've never come across (divot and anvil are two I've just thought of that my 5 year olds wouldn't have heard)... How is a 5 year old to know that 'glosh' doesn't exist or that 'galosh' does? I'm still discovering English words I've never heard of and I'm a middle-aged literature graduate who writes for a living.

I don't understand how any normally developing child who is learning to read wouldn't understand the instruction that some words are nonsense words.

And for what it's worth (not much, I know) my own highly verbal, fluent early reader was at the age of 5 happily decoding any nonsense word he came across; if he came across foreign language words, he would apply (incorrectly of course) the English code to them. When he came across 'snozzberry' or 'spifflicator' he didn't read 'strawberry' or 'applicator' - he decoded the words.

mrz As regards turquoise, it depends what you read :
www.tes.co.uk/ResourceDetail.aspx?storyCode=3002648
is what we use.

Yes, but that's just one TES poster's view - and they themselves say "A ROUGH GUIDE - not 100% accurate as it depends on the child, their understanding, comprehension, fluency etc" - so even they would advise caution.

My LEA's version says the same as mrz's take - 1a is orange and turquoise.

Well dear, please can you spell 'aggrieved' correctly next time?
We actually do rigorous phonics teaching in our school. And I am not worried about the phonics check at all.
As the children had probably not come across the word 'portrait' before, and managed to decode it, I guess they're doing OK.
We're happy with our 45% L3 readers at the end of Y2.

Does that really matter Feenie? Whenever are these things 100% 'accurate'?

I was only saying that there was a clear and significant difference between the orange readers and below, and turquoise and above on the relative percentage of non-words and real-words that the children read correctly, which also coincides with the jump between early reading and sounding out to reading for meaning.

flexybex, your data analysis is interesting. Could you post the raw data for us to have a look at?

Does that really matter Feenie? Whenever are these things 100% 'accurate'

Christ, flexybex, I am with maizie - what are you doing asking if it matters whether a child reads things with 100% accuracy??

It is perfectly possible to be a level 3 reader - or a level 5 reader at Y6 - and get by with guessing. Read the posts here for evidence. I AM concerned whether our children read with 100% accuracy, yes. And so should you be.

As the children had probably not come across the word 'portrait' before, and managed to decode it, I guess they're doing OK

I agree with you here that a children with rudimetary phonic knowledge should be able to decode 'portrait' - it isn't difficult. My 31/40s could do this - but not split diagraphs.

We have 1/4 of the year group reading gold-lime books. These 15 children got between 85-100% real words correct on the check, but only 75-80% non-words.
Furthermore, only 67% of a high-achieving year group read the word 'pib' correctly, including 5 of the 15 gold to lime readers! This says to me that there is something inherently wrong with the test.

Furthermore, only 67% of a high-achieving year group read the word 'pib' correctly, including 5 of the 15 gold to lime readers!

OMG! Can you not see what information this is screaming out to you? What on earth did they say, instead of 'pib'?

And it's the test that's wrong??!!

Feenie.... all of the gold-lime readers can read cvc words. Believe me. I don't think I'll lose sleep on that one.
It is NOT screaming out to me that the gold-lime readers need to regress to learning how to say 'cag'.

We actually do rigorous phonics teaching in our school.

So rigorous that your children can't decode 'pib'?

a child reading within level 2 is using a range of decoding strategies and is looking at the word as a whole with less reliance on phonics, whilst an early reader is only using phonics.

Your statements are incompatible.

Unless the children are picking up this 'range of decoding strategies' on their own they must be being taught them. Rigorous phonics teaching doesn't include teaching 'a range of strategies'.

I can't believe that a teacher is admitting 33% of her pupils couldn't read p i b

As I've said previously our "good" readers (35%) got 100% correct (they are reading gold - brown book bands (2b-3c) and i would be asking questions if they couldn't read pib

I nearly posted this before, but I will this time. My two dyslexic kids could have read "pib" at 6.

The only way I can see that kids could fail to, is if they are being actively discouraged to sound out unfamiliar words, which whilst fluent readers don't do it often, I would expect all 6 year olds to still be encourage to do (pib is not tricky). I listen to a group of year 3's and they are all encouraged to sound out unfamiliar words, or parts of words, even the very fluent readers.

I've got to be honest most of our children didn't say p- i - b they looked at the word and said pib no hesitation, less confident children sounded the words out loud but every single child read pib !

Flexybex, did you plot a graph of book band (or even better, teacher assessed level) against non word score and compare that with a graph of book band against real word score?

Surely no one actually believes that it's acceptable to blame a child's inability to decode pib on the fact that it isn't a real word

Now, the question is, how many of them thought it said pub and how many of them thought it said pleb?...