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?

If pass mark is 32/40... well, 32/40 doesn't sound "quite low" to me. It sounds like 80% and in my education system 60% would be a pass for most things, so 80% is actually quite high a threshold for pass or fail.
imho.

80% of the whole is high but the check only covers a small part of the alphabetic code knowledge so "quite low" is generous

Depends on the difficulty of the test though. 80% on an easy test, is not the same as 80% on a more difficult test. The bar for this one has been set quite low.

Jolly Phonics is far from the most complete phonics program around. The phonics in the main handbook is supposed to be taught during the first year of school i.e. reception. I've not mapped it completely, but I reckon there's enough content in there to get a pass mark on the screening check. Any school teaching JP as it's set out may well get a significant number of their reception children through the test, let alone their year 1s.

IMHO it could do with a greater number of GPCs to be assessed, fewer CVC words and some polysyllabic pseudo words, not just polysyllabic real ones.

this years check covers 40 of the 44 sounds but only 46 of the 180ish spellings

7 not covered by Jolly Phonics in reception

Assuming each of those 7 only appears in 1 word then it is, in theory, possible to score 33.

I'm not sure that makes the test a very reliable indicator. Although not for the reasons most other people think it's useless .

Presumably children could pass that might be quite far behind their peers and still need extra support.

According to the technical documents the graphemes used in the PSC are those which are common to 6 synthetic phonics programmes and which should, according to the programmes' instructions, have been taught by June of Y1.

I have looked at the article you posted, purplemeggie, and am pleased to note that the author, though rather misguided in his conclusions about learning to read the 'natural way' does acknowledge that phonics is the most successful method in a classroom environment. Which is where most children learn to read.

museumum your post was a perfect description of me!

this year's check included all single letter reps except x,plus sh, th, ck, qu, ng, ai, a-e, ar, air, ee, er, ew, oi, oy, ow, oo, or, igh, i-e, u-e

I think it's more than possible that my expectations for the number of graphemes to be introduced by the end of year 1 is too high. PI might have spoilt me a bit.

I'm just struggling to see how at least 30% of children, many without any particular SEN are failing this test nationally. It shouldn't have given children and teachers this much of a problem.

Thanks everyone. Lots of interesting comments. I will have to read them more thoroughly tomorrow - unexpectedly had very busy day today and can barely read for tiredness!

Her phonics score was 36; the teacher said this was OK but it seemed like almost everyone else in her class had 39 and 40's.

She's in the bottom phonics group and the top guided reading group. So the teacher is aware she struggles a bit with it.

She's had basic dyslexic screening in reception and from the results it looks unlikely. I'm dyslexic but this wasn't diagnosed at school.

If her score was 36 she has exceeeded the 'standard', which was 32. She is, indeed, OK.

What, precisely, do you think she is struggling with? Remembering letter/sound correspondences? Sounding out? Blending? Pronunciation of words? Meanings of words?

For me the saddest thing about the phonics test is that it can make parents of children who read beautifully with good understanding and expression have doubts about their clearly excellent reading progress.

The many new initiatives from on high have increasingly robbed teachers of confidence in their own judgement. This test is doing the same for parents.

No the test is making teachers and parents aware that there are gaps that need filling before they become a lifelong problem. Recognise possible issues early!

Mrz
I know your views are coloured by having a son who could read the Financial Times at three but later had great problems with spelling.

Did he not have all kinds of other problems as well? Might they not have affected his literacy progress more than lack of early phonics?

Did his reading later regress too or did he remain a good reader?

I have never come across anyone, young or old, who could read well at six, several years ahead of their reading age, without any or minimal formal phonics teaching, and who did not continue to be a good reader.

No masha my views are coloured by the fact that I am a Y1 teacher AND a SENCO. Remind me how many reception or Y1 classes have you taught? How many reception and Y1 children you have taught to read? How many years you taught primary school? How many years you worked as a SENCO?

My son has nothing to do with this although I do wish such a check had been routinely available when he was six. Your information about my son is incorrect but obviously you know more than his mother or the Educational Psychologists who used a similar check to identify his poor phonic knowledge ... in secondary school when is self esteem had been shattered.

I could read at two and have never had any issues with spelling, other than jewellery. I believe different methods may well have different timelines. Just because the check indicates there may be future problems does not mean there will be, though extra support rarely hurts. However, not all early readers go on to stumble in year three.

The type of screening check used is a well established and reliable method of identifying difficulties Micksy. As you say many early readers do not have problems later because they manage to work out the relationship between spoken and written language for themselves without explicit teaching ... it is the children who don't that the check helps to identify.

Ds1 is an awful speller, does that mean I need to worry about his phonics?

No one can be a perfect speller, English is complex, but phonics can and does help. The problem is often incorrect spellings are left uncorrected too long and become established.

Mrz
U know that i was never a fulltime primary teacher. I have never made a secret of that, or that I retired from secondary teaching 20 years ago. It was then that i began a detailed investigation of the inconsistencies of English spelling and how they affect progress with learning to read and write - from beginning to end. I probably know more about what learning to read and write English involves than anyone else currently alive - because i have taken a close look at English spelling and speak 6 other languages as well.

What i know about your son is only what u have chosen to post about him on these forums.

Thanks, mrz. He did fine on the phonics check and can learn the weekly spellings fine but almost never applies them in day to day writing. It feels like I would be discouraging him if I corrected every one, but do you think I should? Or maybe run through them on a separate occasion? He's just finished year 2.

ABlandAndDeadlyCourtesy
Ds1 is an awful speller, does that mean I need to worry about his phonics?

Phonics is of greater use for learning to read than it is for spelling. because

1. Only roughly 1 word in 4 poses decoding difficulties like only, once, other orroughly, through, cough, whereas for spelling 4 words in every 7 (just over half) contain one or several TRICKY BITS which have to memorised word by word e.g. OnE, tWO, foUr, mAny, brOther.

2. The final stage of fluent reading involves mainly just instant recognition of all common words, while spelling requires the production of all the right letters in each word, including the phonically tricky ones. The latter is much more difficult.

So while many children become fluent readers during the first few years at primary school, even the best spellers take around 10 years to become proficient.

Half of all speakers of English never manage it, and even good spellers never become totally sure of how to spell all words, as anyone who regularly does crosswords knows.