How do I help my daughter prepare for the yr 1 phonics check?

[Churmy123]

Hi
My dd is 5 (6 at the end of July) and is in year 1. She enjoys school, is well behaved and as far as I know doing well and progressing as she should be. The feedback from her teacher has always been positive. At the last parents evening I was told that she has a flair for creative writing and her writing skills and handwriting are at a year 3/4 level. She also said my dd was one of the 'better' readers and in on turqoise books. At home she is currently confidently reading Enid Blytons Famous Five books. Yesterday after school the teacher called me in to discuss my dds phonics skills. They had done a 'mock' test (last years test I believe) and my dd had only scored 29 out of 40 (32 being the 'pass' mark). She asked if I could do some extra work with my dd at home to try and get her up to the 32 mark before the 'test' in June. She gave me some sheets with words on to work through with my dd and also recommended the 'phonics play' website. We did some of this at home last night and my dd appeared to find it easy and didn't struggle with any of the words. Do I just continue doing this at home? Or could it be that she was having an 'off' day on the day of the 'mock' check? Or is it the 'alien' words that are confusing her? I'm a little confused!!!
Thanks. x

[Churmy123]

Crikey I'm even more confused and worried now! Do I put my trust in the teacher and take her word that my dd is an 'excellent' reader or assume that the school is not up to scratch with its teaching of phonics? I don't mind doing extra work with her at home but we already spend a lot if time reading and writing as she enjoys it. I'm pretty confident that she can read words that she hasn't come across before so surely she is using phonics to do this? The other day she sat and read two off my husbands grapic novels with no help and there were lots if words that she had never seen before. So how is she doing it if not using phonics? :-S

[mrz]

I think the key word there is supposed good readers learnandsay

[maizieD]

Don't worry, Churmy! If she can accurately read words that she hasn't seen before she should be fine. She clearly understands that she doesn't 'know', and doesn't need to 'know', every single word she encounters, so isn't likely to try to make the 'alien' words into 'real' words. That seems to have caused much of the bother last year.

[learnandsay]

Maybe, but I'd still like to see this year's results first and then have the argument about who can read and who can't and why rather than have the argument first in anticipation.

[learnandsay]

I think everyone agrees that the phonics check isn't a reading test. So there's still scope for argument about how reading is possible without it.

[maizieD]

P.S. there is no requirement for the children to 'demonstrate' their phonics by overtly sounding out and blending. If they can read the words accurately straight off that is fine. The 'alien' words were put in to eliminate the possibility that a child may have learned all of the 'real' words as whole 'sight words'. The 'alien' words have to be worked out with phonic knowledge as it would be virtually impossible to recognise them as 'sight words' ('sight words' have to be 'told' to the child before they learn to identify them).

[Hulababy]

I said this on the other thread too - but, children read non words happily a lot. We all did it in the past too! Read a Roald Dahl book and you will find lots of non words.

Snozberry - I bet everyone here can read that. Is it a real word? No.

[daftdame]

Mrz - yes I think I get your point. It is easy to go around in circles since there are a few variables. Ability to decode well & good teaching practices = good result in test.

If one of these is missing there could be some problems either with test performance (due to it being an unusual experience and therefore stressful) or a genuine problem with decoding.

[mrz]

Do you honestly think schools are going to tell parents that their child has failed the check due to their poor teaching learnandsay

[mrz]

It should not be stressful in anyway daftdame ...the check should last around 4 minutes with their own teacher

[daftdame]

I agree. Mine didn't take the test although did not read 1 to 1 with own teacher from one year to the next either. But there is no problem decoding. I just like a puzzle, sorry.

[christinarossetti]

Do parents only get told the outcome for their own child?

My children's school told parents the % of children who had passed.

[Hulababy]

Think for our Y1s last year the parents were told as part of their end of year report.

[daftdame]

Christinarossetti - the other thread mentioned results not being published. It was said they are submitted ( presumably to the LA) and also that parents are told their own child's result.

[daftdame]

Learnandsay - I don't think people do read with no phonic skills. I think it possible to have these skills without being formally taught synthetic phonics. However these skills may still be possessed and be so embedded the processing occurs subconsciously. In this scenario a person could be good at decoding but find the test unfamiliar and not perform as well as they would in a natural environment.

[learnandsay]

That's one possibility, another is that they form a great recognition for words and can easily understand what most texts they meet are saying because of that recognition ability. Of course if you put them in front of a different language they wouldn't be able to read any of it, let alone understand it.

[daftdame]

Both possibilities are valid since shape recognition does play a part in reading. By itself it's not reliable though. A strong ability in this area could compensate for a weaker ability in phonic skills but would become unstuck with isolated unfamiliar words - hence the validity of the test.

Where the test becomes unstuck is isolated words in the natural environment have a context regarding where they are placed for example a new brand. The word has meaning because it is placed on the packaging. If somebody is not used to being tested, or unfamiliar with the test environment they may find it difficult to reference meaning for the test and thus become distressed.

[maizieD]

That's one possibility, another is that they form a great recognition for words

And how do you think this great recognition for words is developed? It doesn't (except in very rare, exceptional, and inexplicable, cases) materialise out of thin air. It is not an innate ability. Reading may exploit brain mechanisms which already exist (well, it must do, else we would not be able to do it) but some explicable process must be going on within the brain; 'forming great recognition' has to be underpinned by activity within the brain and although the processes of letter/sound recognition are explicable in the light of brain based research into reading (and as a reflection of the development of the written word) the 'it happens by magic' isn't.

Where the test becomes unstuck is isolated words in the natural environment have a context regarding where they are placed for example a new brand. The word has meaning because it is placed on the packaging. If somebody is not used to being tested, or unfamiliar with the test environment they may find it difficult to reference meaning for the test and thus become distressed.

I think that you are heavily overthinking this, daftdame. There should be nothing inherently distressing in reading a few words to a familiar teacher. If a child were distressed by it I would be very worried about the approach to the test taken by the school.

[mrz]

I administered the test last year and a large number of the children asked if they could come and do some more words the next day daftdame because they enjoyed the 1-1 attention

[lougle]

I am sure that phonics are useful. My DH did not learn phonics. In fact, he was so behind in English that when DD2 came home and talked about homophones, he said 'I remember Mrs x teaching me that.' It was his year 10 teacher.

I can't spell out a word to DH if I want to be discreet about something in front of the children. Why? Because unless he can 'see' the word, he doesn't know what it says. Even a simple word like 'banana'. He has to close his eyes and 'write' the letters in his mind. Then he 'reads' it.

We've realised that he learned to read by whole word recognition. He doesn't see the sounds in words. He simply recognises that when a word has a particular shape, it says x.

It impacts on his spelling. He has no building blocks to work with. He either remembers or he doesn't.

He likes the fantasy genre. When he comes across unfamiliar words, and there are many in fantasy, he has to ask me how it would be said. It is just a new shape, to him.

He finds it hard to see the rhyming pattern of some children's books, because he doesn't see the sound patterns and syllables.

It's massively harmed his self esteem.

[daftdame]

That's a great testimony to your relationship with the children you teach, mrz.

[wonderingagain]

Please please don't coach your dd for a test. It is a meaningless assessment for tracking progress to make sure children aren't slipping through the net.

If you coach her and she becomes anxious how will you feel? The teacher is out of order.

[mrz]

Interestingly daftdame I wasn't their class teacher and had never taught them.

[wonderingagain]

Phonics is great for learning to read but not brilliant for writing or spelling. If your dd can read fine and the teacher thinks she has a gift for writing I would say the less phonics the better.

[daftdame]

lougle I'm not over thinking, perhaps my experiences are rare but never the less valid. I never said reading happens by magic. The brain is a fantastic organ though, we don't understand half it's complexity.

When I referred to the teaching of synthetic phonics in my earlier post I meant teaching phonics as it is expected to be taught now. There are many people who can read well now and who have more independently and organically built on their experience of being taught very rudimentary phonics - as in just been given a single alphabet of sounds.

I would never expect the above to happen for every child, problems certainly occur when it doesn't. I agree with the teaching of synthetic phonics.