year 1 phonics check

[SmileAndNod]

Does anyone know if this is done in the summer term, or is there no set time for it? Also what exactly is it they check? That they can decode a word rather than read? It was mentioned at the start of the year but nothing since!
Thank you

The phonics check / decoding test was introduced to ensure that more teachers use the sort of phonics that some phonics evangelists believe to be the latest cure for children with reading problems. They managed to persuade some government ministers that they have found the holy grain of reading instruction.

But learning to read English involves far more than mere decoding, because at least 69 English letters and letter strings have a main pronunciation, but one or more others as well. Some have an irregular sound in just one or a few words, and not very common ones at that (ce: centre - celtic, cello). But quite a few, such as 'ea' make dozens of words tricky for beginning readers to decode.

Here is a bit of reality check:

a: and – apron, any, father
a-e: came – camel
ai: wait – said, plait
al: always – algebra
-all: tall - shall
are: care - are
au: autumn - laugh, mauve
-ate: to deliberate - a deliberate act
ay: stays - says

cc: success - soccer
ce: centre - celtic, cello
ch: chop –chorus, choir, chute
cqu: acquire - lacquer

e: end – English
-e: he - the
ea: mean - meant, break
ear: ear – early, heart, bear
-ee: tree - matinee
e-e: even – seven, fete
ei: veil - ceiling, eider, their, leisure
eigh: weight - height
eo: people - leopard, leotard
ere: here – there, were
-et: tablet - chalet
eau: beauty – beau

• ew: few - sew
• ey: they - monkey

ge: gem - get
gi: ginger - girl
gy: gym – gynaecologist
ho: house - hour
i: wind – wind down ski hi-fi

• ine: define –engine, machine

ie: field - friend, sieve imb: limb – climb ign: signature - sign mn: amnesia - mnemonic

ost: lost - post
-o: go - do
oa: road - broad
o-e: bone – done, gone
-oes: toes – does, shoes
-oll: roll - doll
omb: tombola - bomb, comb, tomb
oo: boot - foot, brooch
-ot: despot - depot
ou: sound - soup, couple
ough: bough - rough, through, trough, though
ought: bought - drought
oul: should - shoulder, mould
our: sour - four, journey
ow: how - low

qu: queen – bouquet
s: sun – sure
sc: scent - luscious, molusc
-se: rose - dose
ss: possible - possession
th: this - thing
-ture: picture - mature
u: cup – push
ui: build – fruit, ruin
wa: was – wag
wh: what - who
wo: won - woman, women, womb
wor: word – worn
x: box - xylophone, anxious

• y-: type - typical
• -y: daddy - apply

z: zip – azure Masha Bell

Masha posts about spelling reform, not really about the need for phonics as the best method for teaching reading with the spelling system that actually exists.

And phonics isn't new - it's the centuries old method, briefly interrupted in the 20th century by faddy methods which have been shown repeatedly to produce worse outcomes (whether singly or mixed) but which persist despite all the evidence.

I don't spend much time defending phonics, around here there isn't much need for me to do that, but, to be fair to occasional phonics posters here and in some other places they're not claiming to have found the holy grail at all. What they've pointed out is that there are tens of common patterns in English words and by learning to recognise them children can get a good start in elementary reading. And they are quite right. It's true. Years and years ago Marinarik and Dr Seuss (aka Theodore Geisel) argued that with knowledge of just over two hundred words children could learn to read. (Geisel & Marinarik were talking about learning the words by sight.)

The reasonable phonics adherents and Marinarik are both correct. Their approaches are just completely different (in reality children do need a little of both.)

I know educationalists don't find the faddy methods that meditrina is talking about funny (and if you're an educationalist why would you) but if one didn't research it no one would ever believe how some of those fads got started.

The other thing is, if you've used look and say and mixed methods in schools for two generations and 25% of your primary school children can't read, why would you not listen to phonics evangelists?

You obviously need to change something in your schools.

The problem might turn out to be after two generations of using phonics 25% of your children still can't read.

meditrina:

Masha posts about spelling reform
I hav pointed out that modernisation of English spelling, i.e. correcting some of the dilutions of its patterns by careless scribes, printers and dictionary makers, could make learning to read and write much easier. - The exceptions to the main patterns are what makes learning to read and write English relatively slow and difficult.

What i do on MN is mainly to point out (with facts) why phonics alone cannot turn anyone into a competent reader or writer of English.

Phonics is a good, elementary start, but that's all. After that, the only thing that makes a difference is lots of practice. And if u take a close look at any of the 'research' which claims to prove the superiority of phonics, u'll find that the schools involved simply spend more time on the teaching of reading and writing, with more classroom assistants and a wide variety of materials.

I don't know about all of the research, but one bit of it posted in this forum (not in this thread) relatively recently was ridiculous.

mashabell - thanks so much for that post.

no one would agree that phonics isn't important - they've been teaching it for years. However, I think the DFE is placing too much emphasis on phonics at an early age. By the end of year 2 I would agree, but year 1 they are still young. By around age 7, many kids would have learned the sound patterns even without regimented phonics instruction.

Memorising Phonics is not always the most child friendly way of learning to read.

According to many of the posters here children aren't reading well if they haven't memorised all their phonics sounds by age 6. How dull.

I think that argument is bunk

I hav pointed out that modernisation of English spelling, i.e. correcting some of the dilutions of its patterns by careless scribes, printers and dictionary makers, could make learning to read and write much easier.

I heard they did this in one country - I think in the Baltics.

I'd appreciate links to the research which marsha and cg are referrring to. Then we can judge for ourselves.

no one would agree that phonics isn't important - they've been teaching it for years.

I'm afraid that 'they' haven't been teaching it for years. If 'they' had we wouldn't have the enormous tail of illiteracy which we do at the moment.

What do you know about the *history of reading instruction, proudmama72? About the structure of the English alphabetic code? About the psychology of learning? About reading research?

*I mean history as in several hundred years, not just what has happened in your lifetime.

Heh? and what do you know about who "they" actually refers to?

Come on. Let's have proper arguments, not thrashing about in nonsense for the sake of a good thrash.

I'd like to know who 'they' are, as well. That's why I put it in inverted commas. References to unidentified 'they's' don't do much for the writer's argument. I interpreted it as meaning 'teachers' but I may be wrong.

Are you going to produce some research links, cg?

CG
What i'm after is simply greater clarity.
I would like phonics evangelists to spell out clearly, in detail how their teaching differs from that of others (apart from doing more of it).

Because every time they have volunteered a little more information, it turns out to amount to just practice.

We can teach children, for example, that ea has 1 main and 2 lesser sounds (ea: mean - meant, break), - ignoring rarer ones as in 'create, reality, theatre' to start with - but until children have practised reading lots of words with ea, they are likely to hesitate every time they meet ea.

Only when they have come across most of them dozens or hundreds of times and can recognise them instantly, will they read them easily.
To me this means that tricky words become easy with practice - not just phonics, but phonics plus lots of practice.

And there has not been a single rigorous study which has compared basic phonics and mere practice with SP which uses the same amount of practice.

Perhaps the truth is that it does not matter how u teach children to read, as long as u do lots of teaching, i.e. get them to practise a lot, until they are fluent?

Perhaps parents should just concentrate on making it as enjoyable as they can and not give a fig about what method they are using or if their child passes or fails the stupid phonics check with nonsense words.

I hate parents being made needlessly anxious.
But I get the impression that parents are made needlessly anxious by people who pretend that they are doing something new and clever when it's just the same old, same old: PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

My research has merely clarified what necessitates all this practice.

maized.

I can remember being taught phonics - and I'm old, but maybe that isn't true for everyone. So I'm pretty sure generally phonics, phonics has been tought for years.

What do you know about the history of reading instruction, proudmama72? About the structure of the English alphabetic code? About the psychology of learning? About reading research?*
not much as I am not a teacher.

I can't remember which thread the ridiculous bit of research was in. But it was funny.

I hate parents being made needlessly anxious.

Some of the posters are irresponsible in what they tell parents.

Yes, masha, but the phonicsy people never said that phonics was a substitute for practise. What they're saying is that it (considerably in their view) cuts down the amount of practise required from years and years to anything from a few months to a year.

And who knows, maybe it does. But I think, depending on the child and the amount of practise, you can teach look and say in under a year too. (Probably not in a classroom, though/1-2-1.)

I guess one of the other problems is that it all depends on what we mean by reading. Because I could teach a classroom of children to read in an afternoon by holding up a board with a picture of a cat on it and the cat sat on the mat printed underneath. And I would say

"what does this say, children?"

and the whole class would say

the cat sat on the mat

and phonicsy people would say, yes. But, they're not reading it. They already know what it says.

Some of the posters are irresponsible in what they tell parents.

For example?

If you were taught phonics you were a lucky exception. Sad that you have such a negative view of a very effective teaching method.

I guess one of the other problems is that it all depends on what we mean by reading. Because I could teach a classroom of children to read in an afternoon by holding up a board with a picture of a cat on it and the cat sat on the mat printed underneath. And I would say

"what does this say, children?"

and the whole class would say

the cat sat on the mat

You are such a comedian, cg

What would they say if there wasn't a picture? And if you showed them the same sentence the next week without a picture?

If teaching children to read were that easy there wouldn't be any illiterate children and adults around.

things like you should be really worried your son failed the phonics check, I think this needlessly worrying parents.

But look it is just my opinion.