Phonics Test Year 1 Query

[NigellaEllaElla]

DS is doing the "Test" next week. I did a few flash card words with him last night and just have a query.

He sounds out the word but if it has a "y" at the end he sounds it as "yu" as in the letter name, not sound. (Not sure yu is best way of explaining it but can't think of alternative) rather than "ee" but then still says the word correctly.

So for "Happy" he might say "H a p p yu - Happy"

Because he is saying "yu" not "ee" when sounding will this count as a fail even though he knows the word correctly?

Bloody stupid test. He's a really good reader for his age, possibly a little too good cause I don't think it will do him any favours in a test like this!

Thanks in advance for your help.

[mrz]

So when you say the word day it has the same sound at the end as at the beginning of yes, young, yellow and the same sound as in the middle and end of of mystery learnandsay?

[mrz]

"My point really Mrz is that we don't learn all those words phonetically but more by memory and the context of the sentence they are in."

Then your point would be incorrect NigellaEllaElla ...there are 250000 plus words in the English language, an impossible task for any memory and context might give us an approximation if the word was in our spoken vocabulary, which it may not be if you are just 4 or 5 years old or the text is a technical or academic piece.

[mrz]

the pronunciation of the phoneme ai includes the y sound within it.

no it doesn't

ai would be spelled aye

no it wouldn't because clearly it is spelt as in rain, train, Spain



the word "aye" doesn't have the same sound as the word yellow and is in fact pronounced /ie/

oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/aye

www.teachingenglish.org.uk/activities/phonemic-chart

[learnandsay]

aye, affirmative in the house of commons, appears suddenly 1575, origins unknown. This is an anomaly.

aye, adverb, Middle English ai, ei --different ways of spelling the same sound. (Part of the reason why phonics is bollocks.) It's fine as a method of teaching children to read. But building a theory about why our language sounds the way it does is lunacy. In some words, like aye, used in the House of Commons, we have no idea why it is the way it is.

[mrz]

learnandsay you appear to have a huge confusion about spellings and sounds

aye as an adverb is pronounced /ie/

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/aye_1

[learnandsay]

Oh, well, that's alright then. And I presume ooh is pronounced basket.

[mrz]

It could well be in learnandsay world, you do seem to have your own unique slant on language.

[learnandsay]

Lots of English words are not written as they sound, Wymondham and St John being good examples. English is great for that. So, if ooh was pronounced basket, it would be in good company.

[mrz]

Only in learnandsay world I'm afraid

[learnandsay]

That many English words aren't spelled in the way that they're pronounced is a fact.

[mrz]

Well you seem to have your own take on pronunciation is you say "yuh" at the end of the word day

[learnandsay]

Somebody else said that. I've said the opposite.

[daftdame]

learnandsay I think I know what you are saying (sort of) with 'y'. If you put a glottal stop at the end of day you would get a 'y' sound as in 'yellow' (your mouth would be in the right position for this). However we don't usually do this (unless we are singing club singer stylee ).

Regarding how our language has changed I think Chaucer's 'ynogh' (and the name Yvonne) is interesting /ee/ and /yuh/ represented by 'y' obviously belong to the same family of sounds.

However I actually think phonics is the best way to start re. reading. I can't see of another way you could learn to decode unknown words as successfully or spell unknown words, write a representation of dialect for example.

I do think there are other skills we use in reading, like sight recognition (hence looking twice at FCUK), however it is debatable whether these skills have to be taught.

[Biscuitsneeded]

My Ds2 is doing this test on Monday. I haven't given it a second's thought. He'll either pass it or he won't, and I really won't worry if he doesn't, because I know that he has moved on from decoding phonically and reads words through recognition now. And his reading is totally fine. Being a bright boy, who questions things, he may well be totally bamboozled by the made-up words, unless he buys into the alien name fantasy. Phonics is only ONE way of learning to read, and it's daft to give it this importance. It's a crock of *** and will be out of the window as soon as there's a change of government.

[learnandsay]

No, daft, the fact that the y sound is not stressed does not mean that it's not present.

[mrz]

The alien name fantasy as you put it seems to be getting in the way of the real reason made up words are used ... to check if a child has the knowledge to tackle unfamiliar real words when they encounter them for the first time ... unfortunately if your child fails it is likely that they haven't got that knowledge and will struggle when they meet such words.

[mrz]

If the sound isn't articulated it isn't present

[learnandsay]

It may or may not be likely that children who fail are bad at phonics. But doubtless there are some children who just get confused by the concept of reading aliens' names. If a mum suspects her child is one of them then it's more probable that that is in fact the problem (given that the mum knows the child) than it is that something else is the problem.

[learnandsay]

It is articulated it's just not stressed.

[daftdame]

learnandsay I never said it wasn't present...I know it is present but you would have to finish a word with 'y' at the end with a glottal stop to hear it (like the stereotypical club singer does) which people don't usually. (Bet they wouldn't do this in your 1950's dictionary )

[maizieD]

because I know that he has moved on from decoding phonically and reads words through recognition now.

And how do you think he 'recognises them'? Remember, there has to be a brain process involved in recognising anything at all, it doesn't happen by magic. Have you even stopped to consider that somehow his brain has to identify the letters in the word, assign a 'sound' to them and produce the whole word? Just because it can do this in milliseconds doesn't mean that it isn't happening.

[Biscuitsneeded]

But mrz, he will only fail when encountering new words IF phonics is the only strategy he has at his disposal, and IF he hasn't got the gumption to use clues like context, and IF his speaking vocabulary is too limited to provide him clues about what that word could be, and IF that word happens to be a word that one even can decode phonically. I could read fluently at age three. I never encountered phonics (too ancient!); I just loved reading. If my son meets a word he can't decipher he can ask a grown-up, and then the next time he sees that word his visual recall will tell him what it is. Now I am well aware that that might not work for all children, and that some may get on better with phonics. I'm not saying all phonics is pointless; but this test assumes that everyone learns the same way, and I'm afraid they don't.

[Biscuitsneeded]

It's a bit like testing whether children know the alphabet by seeing if they can sing it to one particular tune. Maybe they know the alphabet without needing to sing it to a tune!

[learnandsay]

Biscuits, what you're saying is true of any test.

[daftdame]

Biscuit But if you learn to read concurrently with learning to speak (early readers in my family too) you can not rely upon having a varied enough vocabulary. There will be a lot of unknown words...