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?

Isn't it a little bit odd that a child can read other c v c words that are not real words, but cannot read pib? Was that word chosen deliberately, because of the number of young children who still get b and d mixed up from time to time, or p and q????? Or do some children not see the dot in the letter i sometimes and even misread that as an l??????

It is odd. And needs investigation - the assessor should have written what the children said instead, which may shed some light.

I wouldn't be shrugging my shoulders and saying 'Ooh, look at that!' and moving on.

I agree that having the non words is one way of differentiating decoding verus sight reading but is it possible that some DC are getting tripped up in the application of their decoding strategies

Yes, but the whole point is that at this stage of instruction children shouldn't be being taught any other strategies because they don't need any other strategies.

If you read the research on the reading process (which is carried out by mainly by cognitive scientists and neuroscientists) the conclusion which they come to time and time again (so often over the past 4 decades that no-one even debates the point any more) is that skilled readers* use decoding as their prime strategy for working out unfamiliar words.

Given that there is this much unanimity among the scientific community why are some teachers still insisting on children learning the strategies which characterise poor readers?

NB It is noticeable that significant numbers of education 'academics' have spent the corresponding decades ignoring the findings of cognitive scientists. Who, forgive me if I am wrong, I understand to be working to discover just how people learn; so, in a sane world, their findings should inform* educational practice, not be ignored in favour of theories which cognitive scientists have consistently refuted.

Sorry, formatting went to pot in the last paragraph. That'll teach me not to preview messages

maizieD, like I said, phonics isn't taught in a vacuum - children develop strategies without having been taught them, like the dreaded looking for picture cues...

Cognitive scientists are still unable to define the precise mechanism by which we learn to read. There are a number of models out there which are becoming further refined by recent advances in neuroscience but we are still a long way from a definitive mechanism that can be translated into a fool proof method for learning to read.

Saying that skilled readers use decoding doesn't tell us what happens between decoding and blending - unfortunately Feenie I don't have the answer to that Q.

pickledsiblings Sat 07-Jul-12 11:33:42
I think there is the potential for the whole nonword thing to go over some of the children's heads - especially if it is explained to them by a teacher who thinks it is a nonsense in the first place.

Interesting idea ... which I think is at the heart of the matter.

So, here's a thought (alternative phonics check):

To check decoding, DC could 'sound out' a word making no attempt to blend and to check blending (encoding) they could listen to a word/non word sounded out and make a plausible attempt at saying it.

Would that tell us anything specific?

Just tried sounding out p-i-b to my 5YO and 8YO and asked them to blend the sounds to make a word. 5YO said pib (rhymes with bib) and 8YO said pibe (rhymes with bribe). When I asked him why, he said 'because pib isn't a word' .

Listening to a word/ non word being sounded out by an adult is the step before pickledsiblings which many teachers using in nursery and reception. It would tell us whether the child was hearing the sounds in the word as many only hear the initial or final sounds in the early stages which is why they might spell words with just the first letter when they begin to write

nd 8YO said pibe (rhymes with bribe). When I asked him why, he said 'because pib isn't a word'

and pibe is a real English word

precisely

I guess he's confident that he has heard all the 3 letter words there are (which I'm sure he hasn't)but less confident about knowing all the 4 letter ones .

Did you say p-i-b or did he read it?

and that should say because pibe isn't a real word in English

I said it (sounded it out), and I know you meant isn't, in fact I read it as such.

He can't have been listening if you said p-i-b

maizieD, like I said, phonics isn't taught in a vacuum - children develop strategies without having been taught them, like the dreaded looking for picture cues...

In which case, teachers should be actively discouraging children from using them.

No, phonics isn't taught in a vacuum, but if you were learning any other skiil your teacher/instructor wouldn't allow you to perpetrate a faulty technique or strategy which you might have developed independently of their instruction.

I think our pib problem is a bit of a white elephant. It looks like a letter reversal which we will need to address.

Originally, I was just interested to know if anyone else had found that their level 1 readers showed a different pattern to level 2 readers (i.e. a greater (%) proportion of non-words right than real words).

That's all.

And Feenie, of course I would investigate why so many got pib wrong. It's just that I don't think it's a phonics problem. Surely, if other factors enter such a specific test, it becomes less reliable?

MaisieD I really do believe children at level 2 and above are using more strategies than phonics! They have an enhanced sense of the look of a word, and have started to scan and skim. Reading would be a bit dull if we all had to rely on phonics all the time - and why not use the odd picture cue now and then?

So reversal isn't a phonics problem?

Not totally. Yes, we will have to look at the recognition of b and d, but it doesn't mean that the children are unable to blend cvc words.

MaisieD I really do believe children at level 2 and above are using more strategies than phonics!

Maybe you do, but it looks likely that the strategies they are using are not reliable. It seems very strange that 5 supposedly good readers all had previously unnnoticed reversal problems. But if they do, isn't it a good thing that the Phonics check has highlighted the problem?

What other words did your "good" readers have problems with?

portrait, flute and groiks.

maisieD I totally agree that the phonics check has highlighted some things we need to work on.
However, I feel nervous that we are being channelled into the belief that phonics is the only way to teach reading, in much the same way as my mother, some 50 years ago, was being channelled into the belief that the 'look and say' method was the only way to teach reading!

I have no doubt that children progress in reading using a range of strategies (semantics, syntactics, suffixes, prefixes, root words, shapes the words make, pictures, etc). Whilst I think phonics is a good basis to teach a child how to decode words, I believe it loses its overall importance as the other strategies come into play. These other strategies are evident in children's reading within level 2 as they start to self-correct and predict words and meanings in sentences.

haha syntactics..... syntax.

Flute and portrait were common mistakes with our children

mrz - reversal isn't a phonics problem. Reversal is a totally normal stage of development that all children go through when learning to read. It is frequently manifested in mirror writing, which is a example of the same issue in the developing reader's brain.