Phonics screening test

[Mashabell]

There is a very good article on the madness of the phonics screening test in todays i (the 20 p version of The Independent) and some of its silliest effects.

My guess is that mrz is particular about precisely phonemes are delivered and in which order they are delivered. And it's a guess and it's only a guess. But my guess is that mrz wonders how, if you are not observing your student, how you know whether or not your student is delivering the correct phonemes in the correct order. And if you're not observing her, then how can you correct her if she doesn't do it in order?

And presumably you don't believe that such a system of micromanagement is necessary, (or somesuch) otherwise you'd use one.....

and so it goes...

The bit I don't understand is when does your student (or my student or any other student ) receives high quality phonics training not just bits and pieces at the beginning or end of the day

My guess is that mrz is particular about precisely phonemes are delivered and in which order they are delivered no learnandsay I'm not ...I don't care which order they are delivered I just care that the teacher knows more than a 5 year old.

Don't you trust her? She needs to be able to learn to take a class alone - I'd recommend 20% of her time, though we have quite an open plan set up so I'm around even when not around. Either way, whether you're there or not, your student doesn't seem to be getting a very good deal. What a shame for her.

squeezed when is she getting one to one tuition? that is all I am asking ...if you could tell me perhaps I could put it in place for my student

But you don't know how much the student knows. They might have learnt using phonics or be a phonics nut.

Your arguments centres around the idea that they know nothing or have great trouble learning.

I'm operating as her TA because I have a non verbal child and my student doesn't know Makaton.

We meet at 7.30 for one to one mrz and I am with her from 3 until 6. How many times do I have to say it? Jeez. Right, off to bed.

Just because I learnt something or have an interest in a subject doesn't mean I'm equipped to teach it learnandsay.

I know we're on p9 and the debate has moved on a great deal, but I came across this academic paper today and I think that people like squeezed might be interested in what it has to say about the role of nonsense word testing:

www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL1103.pdf

Just to remind you about what was being said on p2

The data was only part of the picture mrz. There were follow up interviews and focus groups. Your school must have not taken part in this part of the process. As you know, only 2/3rds of children taking part in the pilot actually passed the test. The results showed that the nonsense words were most frequently mistaken by the children who got the real words correct - I.e. those who could read cognitively.

(actually, it was only 1/3 of the pilot children who met the standard)

We seemed to have jumped a bit here. One minute we had a student teacher delivering phonics and now we need Makaton? No. Let's stick with the original problem. That is that neither of you agree about student placement teaching.

And maybe (dare I suggest it) that doesn't matter.

Yes squeezed and you detailed what you do in that time ...which doesn't include high quality phonics training ... that is why I keep asking

Learnandsay squeezed said "Don't you trust her? She needs to be able to learn to take a class alone" and I was explaining the reason I need to be in the class is because one of my pupils needs support as he uses Makaton to communicate ...

I should also add my student hasn't taught any phonics yet.

OK, mrz. But squeezed's class isn't your class. The other thing is, depending on which class you're teaching, is that phonics isn't the most important thing. Teaching is about more than phonics. And if I knew that student teachers were being held back from running classrooms because their phonics was being scrutinised I'd wonder if that was useful.

a) Because their phonics teaching might be excellent.
b) Because their writing teaching might be excellent.
c) Because their classroom management, discipline and coordination skills might be excellent.
d) Because their early years numeracy skills might be excellent.

Who knows what they can do? Let's find out. And if their skills needs refining then let's refine them. They're student teachers.

Not sure if this has been said elsewhere...but some of my pupils (90% EAL) struggled with real words that they didn't know eg portrait. Having been told it was a page full of real words, they expected to encounter real words and instead stumbled through more 'alien' words due to their limited vocabulary.

I know if you can read them, you can read them, real or not...however, it tripped many of mine up and decreased their confidence.

Well,I have a college placement in a reception class (not my DC class) and I would not be expected to teach a class (nor would I feel confident enough yet).

My phonics knowledge is pretty good,although DD learns JP and this class is learning through RWI.

But having been in the class for 4 weeks (only 1 day a week though) the teacher knows I will just get stuck in and do whatever she wants. So the first few weeks were doing the craft activities and last week I got to do some reading/writing with them in groups of 6.

But as Mrz says I guess I am used as a TA (which is fine by me, as that is what I am training for....)

I also volunteer at my DC school and read with yr1, 2 and 4 ( and love it!!)

Also as a parent of a child with a student in, would you be happy to have time taken out to train a student when it should be spent on the children???

learnandsay I mentioned phonics because this is a phonics thread but student teachers are being sent into school without the basic training for teaching "all" subjects. Phonics is just one small part of the picture.

I would also ask where do you get the idea that student teachers are being held back from running classrooms?

Reading "cognitively" is not what is being tested in a phonics screening check. It seems it was correctly identifying children who did not have an adequate grasp of phonics. That is a strength of the test.

It sounds like mrz and squeezed are sort of talking about the difference between a nurse having detailed theory training before being sent onto the wards to do examinations, obs etc on real life patients and a nurse sitting in on handover and picking bits up as he or she goes along.

Both types of learning are necessary, I would say, though it would make sense for the theory to come first.

Apart from the fact that we don't know what theoretical training this nurse has had, who from, when and where. To find that out we'd need to ask her.

Training in a training setting ie a university or nursing school before being expected to hit the ground running.

mams.rmit.edu.au/u8pnvqxnrqqg1.pdf
"According to current evidence, regardless of the type of miscue, students who make errors need to focus on the letters in the word to improve their decoding."