Parents of children who have had their phonics screening

[bronze]

Have you all heard how they did?

I haven't and I'm worried as I'm pretty sure dd is going to fail. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to know by now or not or if I'll be told at all

And I certainly know what fluent reading is! And that is what ds2 does, with fantastic expression.

If a child just slips up on an odd word though, they will still pass. The pass mark is not 100%. Also, as with all tests, it won't be perfect and there will be a few surprise passes and a few surprise fails.

I don't see how offering extra support to those who are being shown to have not fully mastered an important skill is a bad thing? No 6 year old will label themselves a failure... well, not unless their parents get all angsty and tell them that has what has happened, or manage to make being taught in mixed age groups an awful thing or whatever .

That's true, but people further down were very much saying that a child slipping up on strom/storm was likely to have problems later on, which I just don't think is necessarily true, kids do just slip up sometimes, without it being a symptom of a problem or a lack of a particular aspect of reading!

Criticising the test because of 'strom' shows a misunderstanding of how tests work. In any test you want the get a 'spread' of marks. You want your test to discriminate the whole spectrum of ability. The strom word is to distinguish the 39/40 from the 40 out of 40. A teacher earlier was not worried her kids could not read 'pib' (or something similar). That really is a cause for concern but slipping up on the most difficult mark to achieve on the test is not a cause for concern but neither does the inclusion of strom invalidate the test. Schools really are meant to interpret the test test results intelligently and use it as a diagnostic tool. Difficulty with pib and similar = problem. Difficulty with strom= not in the very top percentile for reading accuracy.

I think that's the problem camicaze ... some teachers are so alarmed because their children haven't achieved the magic 32/40 they aren 't using the results as a useful diagnostic tool. If teachers actually look at where the errors occur they can plan to support children appropriately and that includes the children who did achieve 32+.

It would be good to hear a constructive debate about whether 32 is about right as a guide to when children may need extra intervention with phonics. Yes, it would also be good to hear more teachers saying, i realised many in my class need more practice of the split digraph. That would be much more useful than dismissing the check out of hand.

In new on here was looking as got my 6 and a half tr old sons results today he has global development delay gets occupational and speech therapy but learning advise wont assess till 7 he got 0/40 has anyone encountered this before

yes we had a little boy with global delay (but with a statement) score 0/40 last year this year he scores 23/40 so a huge improvement and he is now reading and writing independently at a basic level.

We got DD's with the report. Broken down by boy/girl results and last year's national results as a comparison.

I was surprised that DD passed. She can do it but has the habit of seeing some letters and guessing if she doesn't know the word immediately. So we often have to go back to the word and I understood that for the test the first proper pronunciation counts. But it seems at school little miss concentrates better than when reading at home.

All I know (from info given at a recent governors' meeting) is that the pass rate was 86%. Individual results will go out with reports tomorrow so I'll know then the actual result for my DS.

But the strom/storm thing just points up how stupid this test is. A good reader might well fall into the trap of thinking strom says storm, simply because they didn't look very closely. It's an isolated word. However, if you put 'strom' in a sentence eg 'The boy climbed wearily up the strom' that same good reader will see that it can't possibly be storm because that doesn't make any sense. Reading nonsense words in isolation tells us nothing about a child's ability to read - only about their ability to make the sounds the teacher wants to hear - a strategy that only helps reading with some words in any case, as so many do not obey the phonics rules. I posted to this effect on another thread a few weeks ago and was accused of being ignorant, or prematurely defensive in case my son failed. He passed. His friends who failed are Autumn-born, extremely articulate girls who read WAY better than he does. I know because I have heard them read. I don't know their scores of course but my guess is they just misread a few too many words as real words instead of nonsense ones. Their parents are supremely unconcerned, bright, educated people who know what a Mr Gove is and also know this test will die a death within a year or two - as it rightfully should!

Biscuitsneeded I don't exactly agree with you... a good reader will read exactly the word and not guess it, so if they show them the word strom they shouldn't read storm. 5/6 years old will come across many words that they do not know and never heard of, so they don't exactly know whether strom is a real word or not. A real good reader will not fail this test, the "good readers" who fail are not as not good as they think they are and rely on a lot of guessing and reading books over and over again. Some kids who are "not as good" may pass the test and that is because they look at the word and really need to blend it in order to say the word while others (good readers) just say a word straight away. Don't know why some parents of "the amazing readers" fear this test so much....

DH and I both attending school in the early 80s when 'look and say' was definitely the 'way to learn to read'.

I was lucky that my mum taught me to read, using phonics, before I started school. DH wasn't so fortunate.

Whilst he can read perfectly well, his phonics knowledge is actually fairly poor. To give an example, we have both read the George RR Martin series of books (the nickname gives it away). DH is absolutely crap at being able to pronounce the names of characters or places. The same was true when he read Lord of the Rings.

Maybe it's a coincidence?

Last year's phonics check results at DS' school were shocking (about 30% achieved the standard required). It cause the school to really question its phonics teaching.

This year 88% achieved the standard.

"But the strom/storm thing just points up how stupid this test is. A good reader might well fall into the trap of thinking strom says storm, simply because they didn't look very closely."

Good readers look closely poor readers don't!

Would you still argue if the "good reader" read spilt for split? both real words but anagrams

No results at dgc school yet-perhaps next week when they break up.

Yes of course, an excellent reader would see the difference between split and spilt. But in normal reading there would be context which would also affect how the reader would approach the word.

So why wouldn't they see it between strom and storm? it isn't normal reading the child is presented with the word strom and the teacher tells them "this isn't a real word" ...you get get a bigger clue that it isn't going to be a word you know

Good readers don't substitute words in the test, poor readers do!

But in normal reading there would be context which would also affect how the reader would approach the word.

I'm afraid that it is my experience with older children that they take very little notice of context if they haven't learned to read words accurately. Expecting children to use context for word recognition is a highly unreliable teaching 'method'.

Ok this sounds pretty normal to me. As I got a letter to day my DD did not pass the test she is end of August little girl what do you expect, but met all her national standards for reading, writing and maths. I'm sure with maturity she will be able to sound things out within time. I will support my little dd and hope that she matures over the summer holidays as I have stressed enough with my ds who was ALOT worse tha her and now is thriving at year 3!!

Kardashianw all my August birthday pupils (5 children) "passed" the check including the boy with an August the 31st birthday ...

Mrz I still stand by maturity and having gone through this with my ds already I think I can see what is happening. Like I said I will support her she is miles on form than ds the only part she lacks in is phonics. Ds was exactly the same had support went back in year 2 to be told he no longer needs support as he had good phonic knowledge.

Ds had to be coached by his teacher to remember phonics. He was reading fluently by the test stage and did not use phonics, but rather inference, and the rest of the sentence to "guess" a probable word. He did fine, but no great shakes, and he's a fluent, expressive, free reader at the end of year 1. DD will be another matter. She despises phonics in reception and learns words by sight. She is ahead, and a confident reader already, but by the time she reaches year 1, this will be under stress. It is difficult to learn everything by sight or inference. She will need the phonics. I see students in Year 5 that have "missed" phonids for one reason or another than need to ctach up to be fluent. I am happy for my kids to take the test and pass or fail, because WHATEVER their learning preference, phonic or sight reading / recognition, it's useful for the teacher to see what they've missed/ picked up.

It is, however, not a forumla one performance test.

and I can only report from experience ... all of this years summer birthdays "passed" as did last years class.

Got a letter home today. DS got 40/40 for phonics and 2A for Reading and 2A for Writing. I got the impression that the teachers didn't set too much store by the Phonics Test - just more box-ticking for Mr Gove. I'm just pleased that he loves reading.

Do schools and councils post up their NC levels? I am pleased with DD achievements and she is above national averag (is this 1b?) . But I wondered what local averages were like. Grammar area and lots of tutoring etc goes on.

Will I be forever wondering as only year 2 is published, not year 1?