Phonics test (again)

[gloriafloria]

My ds failed his phonics test getting only 23/40. On his report he got a 1a for reading which I was quite surprised about. He has come on v well this year from hardly reading at all to now on ort 5 so really pleased but do you think I need to say anything on his report or speak to the teacher about getting extra help? As this is a government requirement can I be confident that the children who need help will get it. Thanks and sorry for yet another thread about phonics. I just want to know if I should let the school deal with it or do I need to be more proactive.

What was it that made his reading improve so much this year? The phonics test doesn't test a child's ability to read. It just tests the child's ability to do phonics. There are some who say you can't read without doing phonics, (despite the fact that generations of people have done just that.) Borrow some phonics reading books from the library which are around or slightly above your son's ability and see how he gets on with them. If he needs to sound out more words as he reads then sound the words out with him until he's got the hang of it. You don't need to get into all the emotional/theoretical baggage of phonics in order to help your son with his reading. Some parts of it, like breaking words up into commonly occurring chunks are common sense. But some of phonics is jargonny claptrap. Just use patience, love, practice and above all, common sense.

Well I'd speak to the teacher to see if they can elaborate a bit, really. Did most children in the class pass? If not, then is there an issue in the way school are teaching phonics?

It's hard to advise without knowing more but I'd certainly be asking school why they think he failed.

Learnandsay I think a number of things happened to help his reading. He became interested and wanted to do it whereas in reception he didn't want to know and phonics just passed him by. I was worried and did get him some Rwi books that we read together. His school reading books were no phonic type ones. I think school do mixed reading strategies but they seem to get good sats results. He wants to do the library challenge so will try and get some more phonic type ones when we go.

Spammertime I don't know how the school did overall. On the sheet there was a paragraph saying how only a third passed in the pilot test and they are going to deal with it and not to be concerned. But then reading on mumsnet I start wondering if he's going to have problems further down the line. At the moment I'm just really happy he has progressed this far compared to last year. If he hadn't had the test would he have just slipped through without getting any help I'm wondering.

Hmmm, the fact his reading books weren't phonics suggests that that is where your problem lies. Infact it's surely the reason the test was brought in, to identify schools where phonics teaching wasn't being done properly.

I would certainly be asking school what they're planning on doing - yes pass rate was 30% on the pilot test but I don't think that is reflected in the real figures (not from what I've seen on here anyway).

Thanks Spammertime I think you may be right and if so then the test must be a good thing to get schools to change the way they teach phonics and reading. I think I'll put a comment on the report reply.