Phonics test - sudden concerns and how to help

[Dentvincent]

My DD came home today with a note to say she wasn't making expected progress in phonics. She is Y1 and is due the Phonics test in June - which I have only really heard about on mumsnet until this note. It was a bit of a surprise as it has not been mentioned at all till now. She is on orange book band and pretty much always gets all her spelling right. In fact I thought she was doing really well. They have given me some websites to look at with her which I've done tonight. She seems to be great on all the real words - but I think 'knows' them now as they look pretty simple and so isn't using her phonic knowledge. The a made up word comes up and she just tries to make a real word out of. How can I help her best and should I be a bit annoyed that someone hasn't mentioned it before. She is in the top but one group in the year and at every meeting they have said she is flying

Thanks for help

[daftdame]

sorry meant check

[mrz]

Yes daftdame I have 2 decades experience as a teacher and a SENCO ensuring no child is failed because they were missed.

[daftdame]

mrz what happened with your son, did he manage to acquire good decoding skills eventually?

[mrz]

My son could read to a high level before he started nursery school daftdame and had a reading age in the teens in KS1 (roughly 8 years above his chronological age).

[daftdame]

mrz So would the phonics check have indicated his decoding / phonic knowledge was good? Why do you regret that the check was not around?

[Galena]

See, not sure about DD's reading now... I thought she was doing pretty good. She's 4.1 and here is a short video of her reading a page of a library book. However, she struggled to decode 'determined'. I will try her on Obb and Bob and on one of the MOTiF tests, out of interest, and I'm not going to panic as she doesn't start school for another 4 months! However, I'd rather not confuse her before starting school, so I'd like to know if I'm doing it right or wrong.

[Galena]

(And yes, I know it should be 'pretty well' but I only got 3 hours' sleep last night and pressed post before changing it...)

[mrz]

It would have identified his SEN before he got to secondary school daftdame

[daftdame]

Galena - adorable! I think your daughter will do fine. She looks as if she is really enjoying her book. She will be taught more phonics at school, which you can support. Re. determined, she is still learning.

[Galena]

Ok, Obb and Bob phase 5, she got 9/10. She really struggled with the non-words though as she could read them just fine, but didn't want to say they weren't words in case they were. She just froze up and took a lot of coaxing just to put the non-words somewhere.

[daftdame]

mrz So he could read amazingly well but had difficulties applying phonic knowledge?

[mrz]

he doesn't have any phonic knowledge

[daftdame]

Galena Maybe try some books with nonsense words to share with her, Dr Seuss, Flanimals so she gets used to nonsense words being OK.

[daftdame]

mrz ah, makes sense now. Thanks.

[mrz]

I'm pleased it makes sense to you daftdame because it doesn't make sense to me that schools continue to fail to teach phonics.

[Galena]

She loves nonsense words - she's perfectly happy to make up nonsense words of her own and giggle about them (luckily she thinks words like 'shit' and 'fuck' are nonsense words she's made up to rhyme with 'bit' and 'duck' respectively). She just hates getting things wrong, despite our constant reassurance that getting things wrong is ok, so she didn't want to commit to the non-words being fake, just in case they were real words she hadn't met yet!

D'oh!

[mrz]

obb and Bob has nice alien colourful animations but isn't terribly effective for young children because it does use real words that may not be in their vocabulary

[daftdame]

Sorry mrz didn't mean to be flippant, just trying to get my head round what you were saying. Posting can be a bit like a stream of consciousness if you're not very careful.

I do think phonics ought to be taught, just think its a shame when children are on the receiving end of poor / inadequate teaching and then have more pressure put on them (re. OP and note home) at the last minute regarding the check.

Where the check does the job it has been designed to do, fantastic. However if children are not being taught properly, no comment should be made concerning any potential ability, as the check merely demonstrates their attainment.

[mrz]

The check is there to identify which children need extra phonics input in Y2.

[daftdame]

mrz Whilst the extra phonics is certainly worthwhile, as a parent I would not be very happy if this was due to inadequate teaching. There are only so many hours in a school day, as I'm sure you will appreciate.

As I have said before, whole school results are not published, so how are the schools accountable to the parents?

[mrz]

I would be less happy if my child had received inadequate teaching and it wasn't recognised and my child left to fall behind.

[daftdame]

mrz me too, but I don't think in the OP's case the teacher indicated that the test highlighted material not fully covered in school. Neither was it indicated that the school were going to take responsibility and provide the extra teaching. Instead they asked the parent to do the extra work with the child.

[mrz]

From what the OP has said I would think it is very likely that her child has not been taught adequately and having realised that the teacher/school is panicking.

[daftdame]

mrz I agree with you there and I hope this issue is smoothed out.

I suppose you will get this kind of thing happening when there are new statutory requirements, which make schools more accountable. I just feel sorry for the parents and children who are involved the initial bedding down period.

[mrz]

daftdame schools have had EIGHT YEARS to get phonic teaching right