DS1 failed the Year 1 Phonics test. Is he alone?

[AnnieMated]

Shocked and upset actually. Trying my hardest not to be, but he's a pretty good reader and is finishing ORT level 6 and reading fluently with no trouble.

He got 28 out of 40 and the pass mark is 40.

What I most concerned about is that the school didn't even inform parents their children were going to be tested, we just got a bland, round-robin letter today in their book bags with the results.

Anyone like to reassure me? Don't want to ask the other mums from the school but will have a chat with the teachers tomorrow if I can...

DD2 'failed' - she got 30/40

Yet her report said she is at expected age for reading and above expected age for writing and spelling. She's also the youngest in the class.

So I don't really rate the screening test as a reliable indicator of knowledge/ability/progress

I too do not understand how children who can read well using the phonic method could possibly fail this test, like others have said if they are told that the words may not be real words then this is a reltively simple instruction to follow IMO.

Quite a few people are slating the test without knowing anything about it - mainly due to schools not giving out any information. Some of my friends said they can't see the point in it but I just see it as a good thing as if a child does not pass they will receive additional help.

My friend said her DS passed but he did get a few wrong where he had tried to substitute the alien words for real words - was 'strom' one of them, apparently a few said 'storm' at the first glance (there are 8 mistakes allowed so this shouldn't be an issue). I think adults often see the word they think it is rather than what is actually written but no one should have an problem if they are told it isn't a real word.

I would be interested to know how my DSs school did overall, I don't know anyone who failed but I am guessing not many people will talk about that TBH.

What if a kid is bored/distracted/feeling a bit ill/can't be arsed though? I mean, for the 10 mins or so the test is being conducted?

My DS has just told me that he was told to read the real words as he would usually but to sound out the made up words. I assume he was told which were real and which were not.

He scored 40 and is on white level ( not the most advanced reader in his class but in the top 5 according to his teacher )

My dd did not pass. Not overly bothered. She has really come on in her reading over last few months. Hopefully will alert school she needs a bit more input.

notnowbernard it took 4-5 minutes!!

kilmuir that is the purpose of the check ... to identify those children who need a bit extra support to prevent them struggling in the future.

I would be more concerned if my 6 year was unable to concentrate when asked to read 40 words, its probably one of the easier things they are asked to do throughout a whole day surely?

The friends DCs who passed are quite average readers but the school do lots of good phonics work and do 'nonsense' words regularly so it was nothing alarming to the children.

Don't worry about it too much - so close to the pass level anyway.

DS would have failed if it had been in existence when he was in Y1. Partly because they didn't really teach phonics at his school and partly because he wasn't ready for it. He is now in Y6 and just got his level 5's in both reading and writing.

mrz quite happy for that to happen. I have not told her or other parents the result. People need to chill and see the 'test' more as an assessment of progress and understanding

We didn't get a mark - just 'wa' on her report which means 'working at expected level'. I assume this is a pass??

Some phonics schemes routinely use pseudo words. Children and teachers using those schemes would have been much more familiar with the format of the test. I predict that next year there will be a great deal more teaching to the test.

In real life I haven't meet any teachers, advisors or headteachers who agree with the test. I feel so sorry for those children already marked down as failures at such a young age.

I wouldn't worry. It's just another government stick with which to beat teachers.

DS2 would have got 0/40 if it makes you feel any better.

these tests, like SATS, are testing the SCHOOL, not the child.

So the school has failed in teaching your child effectively.

Your child has not failed.

The school now know to give him a bit of extra help.

Why do parents get so dramatic about this? If it reassures you, my DS scored 2 years below his age for SATs. It showed me the school was failing.

If you read MNet, you will see many teachers who have no difficulties with checking objectively how well children can decode. Indeed, it is what good teachers do anyhow, and there should be no surprises in the results.

That there are surprises is worrying. But at least with a nation-wide screening, children will be offered extra support at the same time and at the same level wherever they are at school.

The only way to "teach to the test" for this screening is to give children an excellent grounding in decoding. This is a very good thing, as decoding is such an important skill in becoming a truly fluent reader.

None of our children found the idea of pseudo words confusing, regardless of being able or less able readers. Most children are used to reading such words anyway - schools have used them in different phonics games for a fir few years now.

Phonics is really beneficial for all children to have a good background in. It will come into its own even more so when it comes to spelling later on in to Y2 and beyond.

It is easy for children to come across as good readers but not be great at phonics. It is important to address this asap in my own experience with my own child. Her ability to pick up and memorise words masked her lack of phonics until part way through y2 - both myself and school missed it. Sadly look and say only gets you so far - esp when it comes to writing later on. Luckily DD's school did pick up on it and with some intense phonics, plus some other work to address her dyslexic type tendencies, they got her back on track.

Oh - and as said on the several phonics test threads - we had NO surprises with our 91 Y1 children. They all did pretty much as expected based on their phonics phases and current learning abilities.

I really do not understand the problem with this. If my DCs could not decode nonsense words that are phonetically plausible by the end of yr 1 I would want to know about it and want to know what the school was planning to do in terms of remedial phonics. My 2 DCs that read are both able readers (neither in yr 1 this year). I would expect them to be able to do this sort of test if administered correctly. the instructions are clear. If 'good' readers are failing then that suggests some sort of problem with the school's approach to me.

Our HT has also made negative noises... but then we have reception staff who still give out lists of high frequency words to be memorised and seem to think using pictures to guess words is a good strategy . We emphasise the phonics when reading with our DCs at home, if necessary covering the pictures if they guess too much, as that isn't the point of reading phonics books! Multiple strategies later on perhaps, but the beginning of learning to read is about laying good foundations. I do wonder how many of these 'good' readers that fail are ones who were taught by parents before they started school with different methodologies.

Don't even get me started on Biff and Chip...

I am totally with mrz on this. An adult would not read them wrong. If any child is readingitwrong, then they are not yet reading fluently.

I think saying that the results need to be given to parents is where it is wrong. Reporting to the government or within the education system is fine, but not to parents. Reporting to the former means the school is being tested. To the latter means the child is being tested or compared.

Many children who have moved past the basic stage of learning to read, of sounding out letters and blendinging them into words, who are already in the habit of expecting words to have meaning, found the nonsense words confusing, irrespective of what the compilers of the test hoped for. So any parent whose child reads well and enjoys reading should simply ignore this test.

The reason given for including nonsense words was to make sure that children would have no chance of meeting them before, so that it gave a true picture of their decoding ability, rather their ability to learn words by sight.

This could have been achieved just as well with less common real words. This was an exceedingly badly designed test and should never be repeated in that format again.

it would be interesting to know how many of the schools with poor results use Biff and Chip

No they didn't masha!

Our good readers who are confident fluent readers had no difficulty with the pseudo words because they had the skills to decode unfamiliar words when they met them.

"The reason given for including nonsense words was to make sure that children would have no chance of meeting them before, so that it gave a true picture of their decoding ability, rather their ability to learn words by sight."

Yes, ^^ this is absolutely the point. It is seriously worrying if a child cannot understand the instructions that the words are not real or familiar and work them out anyway . I have one child who is yr2, but reading age closer to the end of primary school -if they couldn't comprehend and follow these instructions I'd want to know what on earth was going on, as that's plain bizarre if they are in fact effective at decoding rather than disguising a good memory for whole words... if the latter, then the test has done it's job and they need more work on phonics, as one of the pp found with their own child.

I think it is very telling that some schools have had no problems with their able readers, and others lots. This rather suggests to me that the test is worthwhile and doing exactly what it was sdesigned for, i.e. highlighting schools that claim to teach phonics, but where the staff are not actually employing the techniques 100% effectively. Presumably telling parents is so they will then put pressure on the school??

From what other teachers are saying I think some schools are just teaching the sounds but not how to blend or segment effectively. Others are so hung up on the L&S phases or RWI groupings some children haven't had the opportunity to learn all the spellings included in the test (although they should have met them early in Y1) and other schools are still using mixed methods and encouraging children to guess from initial letters (which I suspect could be the real reason some children couldn't read the pseudo words).

So now some heads and teachers are worried how parents will react