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?

Zingally, surely a pass rate of 67% last year and 83% in your class this year proves very very clearly the need for the PSC?

Cream Tea, do you know what Ofsted the school is and when it was last inspected? I think that Ofsted take an interest in schools with low scores on the phonics check, especially if the school is Outstanding at the moment.

My son's school is now in RI because of phonics (and writing).

Zingally, you didn't even know the standard when you cited your 83% 'pass' two weeks ago. That makes me question your commitment/knowledge.

Masha - listmania - tragic affliction

We

We've got a parent's evening next week so I can go in well armed. Thanks everyone.

I find it hard to believe children don't come across words in writing they haven't heard out loud. Most adults use a larger vocabulary in writing than they do in speech.

I'm reading 'little house on the prairie' to my DDs. So far they have asked what the following words mean: prairie, gopher, notch, gypsy, mollasses. DD1 could read all of those phonically but she wasn't familiar with them. One of the great things about reading a lot is that you do come across new words, even as an adult.

I hope you don't mind a granny's view. I learned to read in the 50s, the dreaded Janet and John. It was look say and when we got to a certain point we moved on to phonics. My kids in the 70s and 80s also did look say, a mix between the 4 of them Ladybird, Dick and Dora? (can't remember the scheme name) Ginn 360. All followed the same pattern starting with look say and moving on to phonics.

On to next generation and GS1 and synthetic phonics, Jolly Phonics. He did well, great reader no problems. GS2 is at the end of year 2, at Christmas he was on an IEP (I think that is the right term) his reading hadn't moved on in two years and 1 term at school, basically he couldn't read. His parents were worried, school didn't seem to be getting anywhere with him. I volunteered to do what I did with mine. Got a set of OUP books, made flash cards and did look say. Progress was slow but there was progress, at Easter things started to move on, by May he was flying. He has moved on 8 levels in two terms. He is loving reading, sounding out words like a champion. Maybe it is just attention from granny that has made the difference. We will carry on working over the summer but I think come September we won't have any worries. His teacher is thrilled and feels the helps he has had at home has helped!

In my time I have had teachers telling me Look Say, Phonics, ITA, Real books and synthetic phonics are THE method. I found the real books things weird, teacher I knew socially assured me that "exposing" children to real books would make them readers. I don't know if I misunderstood but it seemed weird to me but then I can't explain how one of my children turned out to be a reader at 2. A friendly teacher tested her, just because she was fascinated, and she could read words she couldn't say.

Its a funny old world and that is for sure.

I am a granny too and also found that my children and grandchildren learned / are learning to read in quite different ways.

This is inevitable when the spelling system uses not only different spellings for identical sounds (seek, speak, shriek) but tolerates different pronunciations for identical letters and letter strings. (See below.)

With more sensible spelling systems u don't get endless disputes about teaching methods or recurring changes in them, nor so many children taking an incredibly long time to become fluent. The phonic variability of English spelling entails huge costs.

a: and – any, father, apron
a-e: gave – have
ai: wait – said, plait
al: always – algebra
-all: tall - shall
are: care - are
au: autumn - mauve
augh: daughter - laugh
ay: pays - says

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

e: end – English
-e: the - he
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: get - gem
-ger: anger - danger
gi: girl - ginger
gy: gym – gymkhana
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, mollusc
-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

Why did you feel you had to post your lists twice on the same thread?

grannytomine some children will succeed no mater how they are taught (or not taught) because they manage to work out our complex writing system for themselves but many won't and need to be taught the relationship between spoken words and written words between the spoken sounds they hear and the letters used to spell them. The problem we have is that until a child begins to fail we can't tell which group is which.
No child has ever been harmed by explicit phonics teaching and many have benefitted. Remember too phonics teaching isn't just about reading it's just as much about teaching spelling.

Why did you feel you had to post your lists twice on the same thread?

Perhaps she thinks we might have overlooked them the first time.

Was it the same list each time?

I confess that I don't bother to read them.

Mrz

I know some children will learn more easily than others, my point was 7 terms, two years and one term, of primary school teaching him phonics and he was on level 2 and that was only because he had done the level 1 books over and over again and I think they moved him on in desperation, he certainly couldn't read. The school used a number of schemes with him, I can't remember them all but Song Birds rings a bell. He just wasn't getting it. Why do you think he has suddenly moved on so much in 2 terms? I don't know but maybe he was suddenly ready, maybe he just wanted to do it for granny. The strange thing is that I feel he had absorbed the information about phonics but he just couldn't apply it, maybe it was lack of confidence or maybe he had just got used to failing but he is using it now.

The good thing is I think he is where he should be, just about. Maybe you could confirm that, he is reading level 8 very well and just starting 9 and it doesn't seem hard for him. It is wonderful to see the difference, he has really taken off and the change in a week is amazing. At Easter he was reading level 5 but it was still hard work.

The bad thing is that the school don't seem to have dealt with it very well, his teacher rarely hears him read, the TA does sometimes but it is often a mother who is helping out. I thought with the IEP he should have had more help, apparently the plan said he should read every day at school but he was lucky if it was twice a week.

He likes the Oxford Reading Tree books, he loves the stories about the magic key. He also likes Project X but he hates Song Birds, maybe unhappy memories. We also like books from the library but sometimes he is a bit ambitious about what he can read, I don't know whether to encourage his confidence or to get him to choose easier books to boost his confidence. Any advice is welcome.

This is all new to me as my own children were all good readers and didn't seem to need much help.

I was interested in what you said about spelling as my other grandson, who is a good reader and did well with phonics is a terrible speller. It surprises me as he is a bright boy, reads loads just finished the third Harry Potter book and likes the Hunger Games books as well. He is also good at maths, top of the class apparently but his spelling well it takes some working out I can tell you.

The nice thing is it has been a lovely project for us and his parents have a new view of granny.

Just realized I have assumed you are a teacher but if not sorry for the questions.

My point is that regardless of how he's taught if he doesn't understand phonics he will come to a grinding halt eventually. It's a sad fact and I say that as a parent, a teacher and a SENCO.

Often children who pick up reading easily aren't good spellers because they have never been encouraged to really look at the words so although they can read the word when they write it they get muddled.

If a child hasn't mastered phonics in that time I would say the teaching hasn't been effective. Too often teaching phonics is learning 44 sounds and one way they can be spelt in isolation with the belief that once a child can read 3 sound words they will be able to read longer words without being taught how and spelling is often neglected so children continue to spell words using the spelling they know for the sounds unaware that in English there are different ways to spell the same sound.

Have a look at the Magic Belt /Totem/Talisman books www.phonicbooks.co.uk/totem-series/tm1-totem-series-3-0-ref-22/ They are phonic books with stories that boys find gripping. They are written in very short chapters and in the Magic Belt books they collect gems to add to the belt with each new story read.

For spelling I would suggest saying the word "in a spelling voice" (many of us will have learnt to say Wed - nes - day to help recall the spelling) breaking the words into syllables and looking closely at the parts he might find difficult and accociating the spelling for the sound with a word he knows how to spell - if he wanted to write ascertain it might be the sc that he finds a problem but by linking it to science that has the same sound/spelling it is easier to remember.

My Ydd, 4, is loving working her way through the song bird books. I am now worrying slightly that although she is reading phonics books, she still may not be learning the background knowledge. She can and does sound words out, but it's now entering a stage

Sorry, posted too soon.
Reaching a stage with more letter combinations like igh (diagraphs? ). She has a tendency to memorize and guess in places.
Do I continue letting her work her way through the books and risk being a bad reader disguised as a good one? Do I supplement with phonics exercises (which seems much more formal and pushy, though I am sure she would engage quite happily). I don't want to discourage her reading new books but I can't afford an endless supply at the level she's on and libraries aren't great for the early stuff.

Micksy in your place I would do some simple phonics with her. It doesn't have to be too formal.

So if she isn't secure with 'igh' make it with magnetic letters, tell her which sound it represents, then add an 'h' on the front- what word is this? Replace the 'h' with another letter, then try adding a 't' at the end etc. Just play around a little- can she suggest any other words? If she suggests a word that is spelled differently (e.g. kight instead of kite) praise her for recognizing and including all the sounds, but tell her that the same sound is spelled 'ie' in that word. She may then want to know more 'ie' words, which is fine. Or she may just accept it and continue with 'igh'- equally fine.

I'll do something like that. Bath time is good for mucking about with foam letters. I'll make it a bit more phonicy (phonicy is a completely cromulent word, I assure you).
I just want to follow dd's lead without crossing the line into hot housing, you know?

This is all really interesting!
I've no idea how DC will have done. The test was done with a teacher that DC doesn't know very well, which was a bit unsettling, all the more so because it was apparent which answers were being marked as right and wrong during the test. One of the words that DC mentioned was 'yewn', which does appear on the list above, so was obviously remembered correctly. DC reported having read it to rhyme with 'sewn', then corrected it to read it as rhyming with 'strewn' because of something in a book about the ground being strewn with rose petals.
Do we ever get to see a list of the words that were on the test and the correct / acceptable pronunciations (or some information about what proportion of children were marked as 'wrong' on certain words)? Part of me would love to know!

The pseudo words can be pronounced with any of the 'sounds' associated with a grapheme. Either way of pronouncing 'yewn' would have been correct. It is only the 'real' words which have to be correctly pronounced.

Personally, I think they should have gone for all pseudo words..

@Shedding

I wouldn't worry too much yet about your DD's slow reading so long as she is reading with understanding and is not having great difficulty with the actual decoding and blending. Some people just don't read very fast.

I'd give it a year or two to see if she gets faster with practice, unless you think her reading rate is seriously holding her back in some way.

All pseudo words would definitely have been better.

Shedding my youngest niece was the same at the end of year 1. She could sound out and read almost any word you put in front of her. Her reading was accurate but not fluent, and definitely sounded very stilted. Now at the end of year 3 she a fluent and voracious reader and you would never know that she struggled. She had all the basics, it just took her a bit of time and practice to get to sounding fluent when she read.

I think so and no stupid pictures of imaginary creatures!

Well we had parent's evening tonight. Said I was very concerned that dc had failed to get 1:4 words right. Teacher pulled out the test sheet (it didn't seem to have occurred to her that a score of 30 was a quarter of the words wrong). There was no discernable pattern to the mistakes that I could see. Teacher refuses to see any need for additional work on phonics.

Teacher kept emphasing that in the tests dc had come out as 2a for reading and therefore there wasn't a problem as dc had obviously developed his own system for reading and was doing well with it. Teacher was getting increasingly exasperated with my concerns, especially when the impact on the Ofsted status was queried. Apparently as the next visit wasn't for 4 years some failures weren't a problem.

Did think it wasn't the time to mention the spelling mistakes in the end of year report

Oh dear. If I were you, I would be doing lots of phonics at home.