Is phonics that important? / Is a lower phonics score teamed with a high reading level worrying?

[whyisthishappening]

My daughter scored OK for her phonics but has a much higher reading level.

She reads beautifully with good understanding and expression.

Her dad has a photographic memory and our daughter also has a fantastic memory but she can't spell.

She seems to learn words, she sees an unfamiliar word, guesses what it is - or struggles and works it out, or we tell her. She then knows it.

We try to get her decoding the words but it is a struggle. She is a very enthusiastic reader and reads everything.

I struggle with phonics - I read words not letters. I struggle to work out the sounds when they are not in words. I took a long time to learn how to spell also.

So is phonics that important for my daughter?

It isn't adjusted, Belloc, but it shouldn't need to be. Almost every child should be capable of passing it, regardless of their age in the class.

Phonics don't work for all readers. I read a really interesting article recently about this - I'm trying to find it for you, but in the meantime, marking this thread so I can find it again!

Rafa - well how come not everyone passes it then? ANd how come they repeat it a year later if a pupil fails?

There are a number of reasons why pupils don't reach the expected level

poor teaching being the most common!

Because a lot of schools are not very good at teaching phonics and early reading. There are schools, some with very challenging intakes, where reading is taught well and all or nearly all of their children pass the check. And that includes the good readers, summer borns and boys.

The fact that it isn't true in all schools is something we really need to work on.

Do you mean Andrew Davis's pamphlet purplemagic?

But parents (and teachers) should want to know how well their individual children can read printed words - and how well they can read compared to all children in the bigger picture - and I am hoping to persuade parents (and teachers where there is a lack of appreciation and misunderstanding of all the issues) to value the check and its broader findings which may require a different perspective.

The Department for Education guidance gives teachers discretion in discontinuing the check as appropriate - and any good teacher should be able to handle both the children undertaking the check, and feedback to parents, with good care and sensitivity. That's a measure of professionalism and people-skills.

The sad fact is that many of the teachers themselves do not understand the issues underpinning either the importance of phonics teaching or the importance of the Year One phonics check well enough and objectively enough - as can be seen by the varied responses to the check in the teaching profession itself.

The check is not adjusted for summer birthdays - but good teacher from Reception teaches summer birthday children effectively too - and of course teachers and parents can take this into account.

One big worry, however, is the idea that our very complex English alphabetic code is fully taught by the end of Year One - this is nonsense.

Even where children have been introduced to the code and many if not most of the children are reading well by the end of Year One, they still need to be taught or revisit the code for spelling purposes beyond Year One - and to embed the code knowledge and skills of blending for reading and segmenting for spelling as these can be 'lost' for at least some children.

Some children regarded as 'free readers' may default to a lot of multi-cueing guessing strategies so that this is their usual reading reflex - and some of these children at least will be the children who struggle more over time and yet no-one fully understands this.

Having said that, more and more people are beginning to consider that the weakest readers may be struggling with GCSEs not because of lack of intelligence but because of weak reading skills and not being able to access more challenging texts well enough - or not being very confident with spelling - which can give the appearance of lack of ability or which may rise to the 'dyslexia' label.

I would like to urge mumsnet parents to look at the bigger picture of 'literacy' and to see a value in the Year One phonics screening check which they may not have considered well enough.

And whether or not people consider that the government was right to promote systematic synthetic phonics practices, nevertheless the government itself needs to understand the practices within schools and their associated outcomes - and the government needs to be accountable for methods and materials promoted.

My son scraped a pass second time around (in Yr2). His reading age (from last parents' evening, volunteered by his teacher) is 9.5 and his SAT scores for Reading. Writing and Speaking and Listening are pleasing. It's a baffling picture for us as parents.

I would be concerned with quality of teaching if a child just managed to scrape a pass 2nd time around I'm afraid Belloc.

The KS1 reading test is a mainly multiple choice comprehension test not a test of reading accuracy.

Reading ages can also be misleading and often differ from one test to the next.

I think it's baffling picture for parents because a lot of teachers don't really understand enough to be able to explain to parents coherently.

Would it have been less baffling if the teacher had taken the time to explain that some children can do very well at this level just relying on their visual memory and a sight vocabulary, that his understanding of what he is reading is very good but that his phonic knowledge wasn't as secure and it will need to be worked on to ensure that he will continue to make good progress with his reading in the future?

What does "scored okay" for phonics mean? 37/40? 33/40?

Rafa - when you say phonics knowledge needs to be worked on. OK I get that. But surely that's something that's done at school? They don't appear to have managed to do that do they?

If your child is "ok" at phonics rather than terrible then I wouldn't worry. I taught myself to read using whole word memorising because I was enthused about books and impatient to read.
I absorbed phonics as I went through school and did learn to sound out unfamiliar words but don't underestimate a child's memory - I could hear/see a word once and remember it forever after. I have a very visual memory.

However, I am rubbish at spelling (can do it but it takes effort and nemonics etc. - not even sure I've spelt that right ). I am also very bad at learning other modern languages, and can't sing - I find sounds hard to copy.

How much of that is me and how much is how I learned to read we will never know. But I would not say that the parents of any child scoring "ok" at phonics should worry unduly, some children clearly have reading that canters ahead of their phonics and IMO it would be a bad thing to discourage the love of reading by holding them back until their phonics improves.

But surely the test is used to distinguish between those who have a good grasp of phonics and those who don't. If you are 'OK' at phonics you pass the test. The pass mark is not 100%, it allows you to get some wrong. It isn't looking for a perfect score.

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I say if dd is okay at phonics, but good at reading, stop worrying - the point of phonics is to teach children to read. If they read without them, then the only remaining point of phonics is to tick the school's boxes with the government, which is currently fixating on synthetic phonics being the way to teach reading. Their problem, not yours and certainly not dd's.

Firstly it isn't a test Belloc it's a screening check used to identify those children who may have difficulties with accurately decoding words. A very similar screening check is used by Educational Psychologists to identify reading difficulties. The pass mark is quite low as you say, possibly to placate opponents of the check.

Mrz A screening check that you pass or fail. Hm. Isn't that the same as a test?

"the point of phonics is to teach children to read. If they read without them, then the only remaining point of phonics is to tick the school's boxes"

I'm afraid that simply isn't true purplemeggie

Written language is a representation of spoken language. We use the symbols we call the alphabet to represent the spoken sounds in our language. Understanding the relationship between the spoken sound and written symbol helps use to decode words for reading and to encode words for spelling. Two sides of the same coin both equally important. As spelling in English is more complex it often lags behind reading and being a good reader doesn't necessarily mean that you will be a good speller especially if you don't understand the alphabetic code.

The actual check doesn't mention passing or failing Belloc ... I would say that 32/40 is a minimum expectation.

mrz - To-may-toe, tom ar toe. You say phonics screening check, I say phonics test. I'm sure the expected level is the official lingo. Parents call it the phonics test. And their children either pass (meet or exceed the expected level) or fail (to meet the expected level).

Calling it a test doesn't make it a test Belloc ...it's a well established and effective method of identifying possible reading/spelling difficulties with the aim of correcting them early rather than waiting until the child has fallen behind.

I'm not against the phonics screening check. I just wonder what the point of it is when some schools (e.g. my children's) don't seem to do anything about augmenting children's grasp of phonics when they fail to meet the required standard.

It's as though they think the screening check is pointless.

There isn't any point if they don't follow it through. It's a useful diagnostic tool if used effectively rather than making excuses

But Mrz - phonics isn't going to teach a child to spell in English....there are so many irregularities. It may work for some children, but it doesn't work for all...and for those for whom it doesn't work, it holds them back.

Only if they are taught badly ... or do you imagine anyone can memorise a million words as wholes? There is a reason why those children who regularly score 10/10 in spelling tests fail to spell the same words correctly a day later