Phonics check

[BucksKid]

Why do teachers, on Internet forums, say 'yah, (eg) 83% of my class passed the phonics check' Rather than 'oh no, 17% of my class didn't pass the phonics check' ?

Do they realise how disrespectful that is to the 17%?

Do they care that 17% of their pupils have left their class without the basic skills needed to learn to read?

Is it because they met their performance management target?

Could someone please list, or direct me to a list of, the pseudo words used this time?

Whilst I am convinced that phonics is the best method with regard to having the least failures, I have seen far less evidence persuading me that it is the best method for the entirety of the 80% who would have managed with whatever method.
I'm sure an alternate method is: learn a tonne of sight words, read books early, enjoy reading with confidence, read enough books to reverse engineer the process and be able to sound out new words.
In order to say that one group was more competent than the other, you would need to take into account that the sight reading group may be on a completely different timeline. They may indeed be less competent at sounding out new words, but may be much more advanced at choosing the correct real word from a group of phonetically plausible options.

I'm sure an alternate method is: learn a tonne of sight words, read books early, enjoy reading with confidence, read enough books to reverse engineer the process and be able to sound out new words.

Sigh.

It's been done. Micksy. It's called variously Whole Word, Look & Say or Whole Language. It doesn't work, cognitive scientists came to that conclusion decades ago.

Well it does work for some. I self taught to read at two and I'm fairly certain it wasn't with phonics. I'm also positive Shakespeare didn't learn with phonics. Like it or not, alternative methods work perfectly well for large swathes of people and have done throughout history.
I am in no way arguing that there is an around better system than phonics when looking at entire populations but I am certain that the are individuals who have a preference to a different style.
I would be extremely surprised if at this point, given that it is known that phonics fails fewer children, any study comparing the effectiveness of different methods on comparable groups of children would be deemed ethical.
If such a study existed, however, I would be entirely unsurprised if certain children, whilst still becoming competent readers, were shown to progress more slowly, or have other adverse reactions to a phonic method.

masha can't remember them all but cloin stands out - I had a lot of kids say colin!!

It's very easy to think that some children may have interpreted alien words as alien names. It usually wouldn't matter so would be a very difficult misconception to pick up in advance, I would imagine.

vol
teg
jat
ind
tull
shog
foid
thard
frem
cloin
bulm
harnd
jair
clain
yewn
tabe
clisk
thrand
strad
scroy

Do you think these children aren't able to understand when the teacher tells them this is a made up word?

Micksy the reason children interpreted the pseudo words as alien names is that is exactly what they were told by their teachers ... "you won't know this word because it is the name of an alien creature just read what is there". They were told that every single time that they met pseudo words so that they wouldn't try to make them into real words ... it seems some children don't listen.

As for Shakespeare ... in the 16th century there was no standardised spelling so people wrote words as they sound (phonics), which is why Shakespeare often spelt the same word in different ways on the same page. The other thing about Shakespeare was that he was responsible for including many pseudo words in his work ...think hey nonny nonny

In fact he is credited with inventing 1700 words which are now firmly part of our language.

Micksy, The trouble is we have no way of knowing in advance which children might be ok without explicitly taught phonics and which ones won't. And you can't just go by whether they appear to be fluent readers, because decoding problems often show up later, in Years 3/4, when the amount of vocabulary in what they are supposed to read increases dramatically, and they can no longer rely on memory. In addition, there are a lot of good readers out there who weren't taught with phonics who are truly terrible at spelling.

I just asked my DD (9) who is an ace decoder/reader/speller in both French and English to read the list of pseudo-words, having told her very explicitly they were made up words in English.

Even she was thrown by "vol" (a common French word - the word for "flight") and said it in French.

I thought the pseudo words were supposed to be unambiguous and not common foreign words?

Does 'vol' sound different in French than it does in English then?

Yes - the vowel sound is quite different.

Is it closer to a short or a long vowel sound as that's most likely what is being assessed?

I just asked her to read the list in French, imagining they were French words! Some were really hard to render in French (yewn) but others just tripped off the tongue - foid is just "froid" (cold) minus the r.

In the middle! Closer to a short vowel, but it's in a different position in the mouth, near the lips.

closer to a short vowel sound = a pass (I would think)

That's not really the point though - the point is that aural/oral language skills are used automatically by a child (even an older, high achieving one able to follow precise instructions in many circumstances with ease) when decoding...

But isn't that ok, Bonsoir? The check is supposed to help teachers to identify which children might need more help in decoding English words. A native French speaking child reading 'foid' to sound like 'froid' would indicate that that child may need some help in decoding and pronouncing vowel sounds in English, wouldn't it?

And sorry to lower the tone, but 'bulm'?! How many six year olds managed to say that without sniggering?!

Bulm could have a silent l - like almond...

What exactly is the point Bonsoir? When reading aloud surely we should expect children to use aural/oral skills or are you saying they shouldn't?

It may reassure you that children are not penalised for variations in accent or speech sound difficulties.

Almond has a silent a-l-m-o-n and d but the spelling represents the sound /ar/

And the spelling consonant+ulm?