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 whole test is POINTLESS. You will get the results in the end of year report with the actual words PASS OR FAIL which is an outrage for a 5/6 yo

They don't - they get a WA (Working at) or WT (Working towards), plus their actual score.

Do not even mention it to your child, they hardly notice they are doing 'a test' and to put even 1 ounce of pressure ona child to pass a test at this age is an outrage.

No one does - they just read one to one with an adult which 99.9% of Year 1 children love.

The only people I ever hear talking about passing/failing/pressure/tests are the people against it. It's certainly never mentioned to children ime.

What if this mistake takes the score one below the pass mark?

TBH, CecilyP, if it takes the child 1 mark below the 'pass' they've already (or had in previous years, because we don't know what this year's mark is yet) read 8 words incorrectly. Which is pretty poor of itself and would have me, at least, thinking I'd have to keep an eye on them even if they weren't actually earmarked for extra support.

I find all this nit-picking about the phonics check very wearing. Don't you realise it is about ensuring that YOUR children have the best foundations possible laid for a lifelong ability to read (and even to enjoy reading). It isn't about 'passing and failing', it is about making sure that no child falls behind without being noticed and helped.

Stomps off muttering about ingratitude....

Yes, but far too much emphasis is placed on the test by teachers and parents, it is only one indicator of their progress at school and not a blanket indicator by any means.

The school has to, by law, put PASS or FAIL on the result, when they should just put 25/50 or whatever the score.

Lasy year my DS 'failed' it but is on one of the top reading book levels - so it does not indicated how good or bad they are a reading!

You know and your child's teacher knows, due to the day to day communication etc etc, where they are up to and what help they need without the need of a test.

Thank you Grants. I stopped responding on this thread as some people got quite childish. You have backed up what I was trying to say: good readers can sometimes not reach the 'PASS' mark in the check and poorer reader can 'PASS' despite being unable to read or comprehend a sentence.

Because it's not a reading or comprehension test!!

The school does not have to put pass and fail on the report or indeed include the information in the end of year report.

The law says it is up to schools to choose how they communicate the results to parents.

grant may have backed up what you were saying gizmo but their reply was totally incorrect

"Because it's not a reading or comprehension test!!"

What is it for then SpanialEyes?

it's a phonics check, pure and simple! It checks which sounds children know and which they don't. Reading and comprehension are assessed in different ways.

The template for reporting to parents simply says

Your child's score
(child's name)

__ /40

It's to identify children who do not have an effective strategy for tackling unfamiliar words and who may struggle in the future grants (usually around Y3 in the UK)

However much you try to delude yourself, Gizmo, it is highly unlikely that truly good readers will fail to reach the standard in the Check.

Good readers read exactly what is on the page in front of them, whether it is isolated words or complete sentences.

It is really sad that teachers hold on to misguided beliefs about teaching reading and what characterises 'good readers'.

It is notable that those defending the wild guessers seem unable to read for meaning themselves. It has been said several times that the check results are not supposed to be reported as pass/fail but the pass/fail myth keeps being repeated.

If anybody has a good reader and is worried then she can write 40 random words on a sheet of paper and ask their child to read them. If it goes badly, though, it's probably too late to do much about it now.

The only possible downside I can see is that children have doubtlessly had limited experience of reading isolated random (and some made up words). (Reading an unfamiliar word in the context of a sentence isn't the same as reading a random isolated one.)

My DD very frequently reads random words outside of sentences- road names, names of shops, stops on the train or underground. Yes, they do have some context, but no more than the name of an alien. I don't think the reading of isolated words is a particularly unusual skill.

Possibly, but isn't it more likely that street names follow a recognisable format, either a person's name followed by a designation, Cooke Street, Disraeli Close, Thatcher Road, and so on, and possibly the same could be said of shops. Company logos (and this conversation has been had before) are, on the other hand, often completely random letter jumbles, isolated, with barely any context at all, or at least no literary context.
An equivalent for a monolinguistic child might be certain messages printed alone and in isilation on parts of foreign shops like:

druken
auf

Do you have children columngollum

The stupidest thing about this test is that all children in YR 1 have to take it - even fluent readers who are way past the basic decoding stage and have moved on to coping with English phonic irregularities.

The test could be of some use, if it was given only to weak readers, to establish if they have difficulties with decoding and to identify their particular weaknesses. Giving it to good readers as well is utterly pointless.

So what's the actual problem with "fluent" readers taking the test , then?

If they are truly good readers, they will sail through it. If they are good at guessing words from context and visual clues, they won't.

If a child cannot decode words they have not encountered before, they are, ipso facto, not good readers and it is a good thing that things like this are picked up.

So what's the actual problem with "fluent" readers taking the test , then?

A pointless, inappropriate and costly waste of time.

Travelin - or you just completely miss the pun anyway! I'd never noticed that about Grimauld Place before - thanks for pointing it out!

Yes, I just got a score when my dd was in Y1, not a 'pass' or 'fail'.

Even if she is a 'good reader', I'd be concerned if she came below the benchmark for accurate decoding at the age of 6 tbh and would want the school to be working to plug her identified gaps.

The screening takes a few minutes per child - it's hardly a laborious task for schools to undertake (and I sort of think that if more schools had been more rigorous about ensuring that young children learn phonics accurately, the test wouldn't have been implemented or would have been pronounced defunct after the first year).

The phonics test is allegedly: "pointless, inappropriate and a waste of time", huh?

Pointless? No, the point is to screen young readers to see whose decoding skills need further work.

Inappropriate? No, it is appropriate for differentiating between good readers and good guessers and to identify those children who need extra supports with learning to read.

A waste of time? Takes schools an average of 3 hours staff time to prepare for test, 12 hours to administer the test. Two person-days per school, in other words. Doesn't seem that long to me, especially if it results in resources subsequently being allocated to those children who have demonstrated a need.