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...

Students t teachers aren't allowed - it has to be a teacher who the child knows well.

feenie oh well it obviously wasn't the student teacher then, but it definitely wasn't her class teacher.

Her class teacher had similar views to others on this thread - getting kids to de-code nonsense words just doesn't work for some kids, especially when they're reading at a high level for their age (how could they possible do this without being able to decode properly?). I think my DD just thought that telling her it was nonsense was some sort of 'trick', and thought along the lines of 'why would anyone get me to read a nonsense word to pass a check? I'll make it into a real word'.

What books do these kids that hate "nonsense words" read?

Kids I know at that age, like to read things like Roald Dahl, or Edward Lear, or Lewis Carroll, or lots of other less famous books which fill their books with "nonsense words".

Equally, books are chock full of names, exactly what the kids are being asked to read in the check, it's not a nonsense word, it's a name. If you're DD is really going to think the instructions:

The words on this side [turn over ‘practice sheet’] are not real words. They are names for types of imaginary creatures. You can see a picture of the creature next to each word.

Mean they're being fooled, then they probably aren't that strong a reader.

DS read an alien word as an acronym.
I posted about it at the time but couldn't say which word it was as it was in the test week.

It was vip

He informed his teacher it said Very Important Person. How she kept a straight face I have no idea.

He obviously did correct his answer though, he is a great reader and scored 40.

Our school have been doing this test for four years and have always given parents the result.

We don't have any phonetic books in school however to back up the phonic teaching which is a shame.

Vip wasn't one of the test words so you would have been fine posting it

"I think my DD just thought that telling her it was nonsense was some sort of 'trick', and thought along the lines of 'why would anyone get me to read a nonsense word to pass a check? I'll make it into a real word.' "

I may not worry about her reading skills, but worry about her understanding and following instructions...

By the way the thread is 4 years old, so OP must have moved on by now, and we are responding to the new poster who revived this thread.(who seemed to have disappeared as well.)

The nonsense words are dirty pool. Only real words should be used in the test for obvious reasons. Able readers will be confused by false words.

The pseudo words are en effective tool that are used by SENCOs and Educational Psychologists (for decades). IMHO only pseudo words should be used eliminating any lucky guesses.

If a child can read any word they meet they won't have problems as they progress though school/life encountering more difficult and technical language.

Able readers aren't confused by pseudo words able guessers are!

My DS failed in year one but has passed fine this year. He was a summer baby and often is behind the other older ones (he is youngest in year). He has now done a huge leap and has overtaken many if his classmates. It's hard not to worry but it will work out.

Vip was indeed in the test Mrz, confirmed by DS teacher and two other yr 1 teachers I know outside of school.

How strange if your test was different.

Vip was not in the test i administered it

It wasn't even one of the practice words.

2016 pseudo words were
Lig, mep, gax, emp, beff, shup, doil, charb, frex, criff, haps, barst, jigh,woats, rird, phope, glips, floost, splam, stribe

Practice words were
Ot, vap, osk, ect

My test wasn't different the same test is sent to every school

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/532604/2016Phonicsscreeningcheckpupilsmaterials-standardSTA167501e.pdf

I also administered the test and did wonder what you could have been talking about at the time of hinting! Sounds like he misread the practice word 'vap'.

Thanks Feenie thought I was going mad

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Can child who reads "vap" as "very important person" be classed as good reader?

My ds and dn are the same age at two very different schools in London. Ds's school teaches phonics exactly as mrz would like to see, reading books sent home are all phonic-decodable for the first year or two, etc. Dn's school has stuck-in-their ways teachers who encourage guessing and pictures and no system. Three years on, ds reads anything and dn is in a right state (until he steals ds's book bag) but his scool have the excellent Ofsted and great KS2 results because it's a very middle-class area and parents teach most of the kids to read.

It's not a pointless test - a kid who rushes and reads blurst as blurt or burst even when alerted to half the words being alien names, is going to be the kids who fail GCSE exams because they talk about casual not causal links and are too bogged down by confusing similar words to read their history texts. It's a two-min check per child, one hour of staff time, and it can alert teachers to potential future problems.

I hate reading Pseudo words - I hate it when my DD's fiction is peppered with them. I don't know how to pronounce them, and reading them out loud is a nightmare. As Mrz says, they are a tried and tested way of identifying reading difficulties such as dyslexia. Not being able to read them may not necessarily mean you can't read - I did an English literature degree. But they can be an excellent tool (amongst a battery of tests) for identifying reading issues. I'm dyslexic, but wasn't diagnosed till 13 because on my day no such 'check' existed. If a child doesn't do well it can mean they need help and there is no shame in that. I now have a PhD, so academic success is not determined by pass or fail on this check.

My DS failed it last year and passed it this year (year 2). It didn't bother me in the slightest. The test is easy to fail, even for good readers (who try to make sense of the bonkers made up words). The SATS are not a good way to test kids. I looked back at writing I did when I was 10/11. It was rubbish. No rainbow words (adjectives) and short sentences. No connectives. The SATS are sooooo harmful. Kids who do badly think that they are failures. Kids who do well think they are amazing (and find out later on, when they get to UNI, that they are really only average!). I think I was quite high functioning as a 10/11 year old, but if I had been told that I would have been lazy and arrogant. No one needs to know if they are the best or the worst, just whether or not they are enjoying learning and doing their best.

Actually the check is very difficult to fail if you are a good reader rather than a good guesser.

If he has read vap as very important person I'd be shocked