Yr 1 report - informed me she failed phonics test.....

[sugarhoops]

But she was given expected and exceeding for all report areas and her main report gave no mention of failing the test (the phonics test result was on a separate piece of paper, included in her report pack).

I have to confess, I was a little alarmed at the fail in the phonics test (29/40). I've been told by the teacher at last parents eve a month ago that DD is in the top group for phonics, one of the top readers in the class and is excellent at literacy. I was surprised to see she failed the phonics test, but then was given expected and exceeding for all her report areas, with no mention of needing further phonics support.

Can you just have an off day? My Ds passed the test a few years back and was definitely further behind with reading and phonics compared to dd at this same stage of yr 1. I'm confused, and not sure what to do to support her so that she passes in yr2 retake.

In what way do you find the check weird?

I guess the issue is that when you are on stage 8 (or even a free reader but only 6), then you are going to meet a lot of words that are not words you have come across before. In the phonics test they are 'alien' words. But in a complex text, 'new' words are not really any different from alien words. If you are trying to turn 'new/alien' words into words you are familiar with reading, it is seriously going to hamper your ability to read in the future.

Having said that, I am not great with phonics (I am dyslexic), and if I come across 'new' or 'alien (e.g. harry potter, or foreign surnames in articles I'm reading), I do just make it up. Normally with little correspondence to the sounds on the paper. Whilst this doesn't get in the way of me being an excellent reader, it does mean that I am still, at the age of 42, a very poor speller. I think that phonics is helpful for learning to read, and incredibly helpful for spelling.

This doesn't mean that you need to worry necessarily, but hopefully it just highlights a potential issue. She may pass with flying colours next year too.

Place names often have historical pronunciations that don't reflect the changes to our language over time

Just realised my screen was a page out of date! You all have moved on rather a lot since sugarhoops's update.

I'm really sorry, sugarhoops, but I think your confidence in your dd's teacher is completely misplaced.

She said completely nothing to worry about. She said DD was self correcting the alien words to make them real words....like we all do when we spot a misspelt word.

We correct when we spot a misspelled word because we have a very large reading vocabulary and we have extensive enough reading experience to be able to know that it is a familiar word that has been mis-spelled. No 6y old, however 'advanced' they may be with their reading has enough knowledge or experience to do this.

Apparently she needs no further support in yr2.

And if she fails to reach the standard when she re-takes the PSC? What then?

Teacher also said that she disagrees with the timing of the test, for many children she feels it would be much more beneficial to take the test at the end of reception, when decoding is still be using much more regularly to read books.

As a complete phonics programme takes at least all of YR & Y1 that seeems like a very odd thing to say. The purpose of the PSC is not only to check that children are secure with decoding and blending but also that they have learned most of the common letter/sound correspondences. they will not have done the latter by the end of YR. In addition to that children should be taught to always decode unfamiliar words, and, to read accurately.

I spent a decade working with children at KS3 who were struggling with their reading as a result of teachers like this.

I think place names and foreign surnames have about the same level of weirdness as alien words. For example, you're unlikely to have heard people using them or to have heard them on the radio or TV.

Foreign names aren't weird they just have different phonemes which is why it wouldn't be a good idea to use them

I dare say that some are unpronounceable, yes. But, our garages would be empty without them, classical music would be fairly silent and science would be much reduced. So, on the whole, I think we manage to pronounce them when we want to buy something. If it was my daughter who was the subject of this examination, I'd want to know, not was she an expert at reading German surnames, but, how did she approach the challenge. Of course I'd choose ones that I thought she would have a hope of managing. I suspect the Japanese ones would work too, because, by the time they've been rendered in the western alphabet, they've been Anglicised, anyway.

Maize, I don't think that the psc assesses all the phonics that would be expected to be taught in year R and 1. Only a limited range. I think it's quite possible that some children could pass at the end of reception. Not many with full marks but 32 would be quite attainable if you taught a handful of alternative spellings.

The worrying part is the idea that she would have passed last year but didn't this year because she's gone beyond phonics. That would set ala bells ringing.

The PSC uses the spellings for the sounds taught in reception and Y1 in the most commonly used phonics programmes.

By the end of reception most of the commonly use phonics programmes will have taught one way that the 42-44 sounds can be spelt only. So in this year's check where and featured children would be unlikely to have met both at the end if reception.

Mine failed with 29, the week before he got them all right, the week before that he got them all right. I'm not worried, although sometimes I have to remind myself im not worried
I am taking it as a blip, he's in the top set too and is reading high level (although not quite free reading) books.
Ours was administered a few weeks before the date they were officially meant to, by a student teacher who had been there a month.
If they want to offer more support, they can. More one 2 one is never going to hurt.

That's totally illegal! The school could be in big trouble if it was discovered.

Weren't they slightly limited by only being able to include graphemes that were common to 6 major schemes though? It has reasonable vowel grapheme coverage. It's a bit short on consonant spellings.

I don't think it's a good test of all the phonics a child should know by the end of year 1. But my expectations might be slightly high. It does seem to do a fairly good job of identifying those children who's phonics knowledge is poor enough that it can affect their reading later on though.

6.3 Maladministration
The term ‘maladministration’ refers to any act that:

affects the integrity, security or confidentiality of the phonics screening check
could lead to results that don’t reflect pupils’ unaided work
Your school could be subject to investigations of maladministration if it doesn’t comply with:

the ‘Assessment and reporting arrangements’
our check administration guidance
Maladministration can lead to changes to, or annulment of, results for a whole cohort, groups of pupils or individual pupils.

You should report any issue with the administration of the check and/or any allegations of maladministration you receive by calling the national curriculum assessments helpline.

I was moderated last year and they checked that the check papers were sealed inside a locked cupboard in a locked room ...

Very limited the check only covers one spelling for the consonant plus double consonants, wh and ph.

Off topic, but can I ask about 'keam'? The answer guide seems to suggest 'rhymes with team'. The document that details the structure of the test has the phonemes /ee/ and /e/ listed for the grapheme 'ea'. Would you have marked it correct if a child sounded it as /k/ /ai/ /m/?

I know it's a rare spelling of /ai/ and most children would use /ee/ first, but I don't see any obvious reason why it shouldn't be accepted. Except for the fact that the pseudo-words aren't supposed to be homophones for real words. Not sure if it's a gap in my phonics knowledge or an oversight by whoever wrote the test.

I would probably accept it as a valid alternative (putting aside that no homophones should be included).

I'm sorry but I find it really hard to believe you rapha that your niece could read at ORT stage 7 without being able to blend a cvc word. Having had my DD just move up from stage 7, I genuinely can't believe that your niece was reading at that level but couldn't blend cvc words

Doesn't it depend on what you mean by blend? People taught by Look & Say can't officially blend anything. But, because they're also taught to spell, can doubtless work out what an unfamiliar word says. Of course, they might mispronounce it.

ORT were written so that children didn't use phonics sugarhoops They are a Look and Say scheme, children learn some words as wholes by sight and guess the others using the illustrations. The books rely on repetition and predictable text.

DoraGora are you a teacher?

It's not that unbelievable for the reasons mrz suggested. She has an exceptional visual memory. She really only needs to see something once to remember it. Once you tell her a word she knows it. She looked at the words when you were reading to her as well. Once she knew enough, she would pick up new sight vocab from the stories you were reading to her. But she really didn't learn to blend sounds and hear a word until part way through year 1 and by that point she could read stage 6 fluently and would only have difficulty with new words at stage 7.

Her younger sister also struggled with blending until year 1 but without the visual memory to back it up. It's interesting how differently they were labelled. Dyslexia started to be mentioned quite quickly with the younger one.

My son was reading the Financial Times age 3 but couldn't blend simple words (certainly couldn't spell any)

Well thanks very much mumsnet, I start the holidays feeling like my DD has somehow failed yr1 in the most crucial area.

In summary:
(A) I shouldn't trust my DDs very experienced & knowledgeable teacher who says honestly not to worry about the phonics result
(B) my DD reaching stage 8 of ORT is actually pretty useless as those books are repetitive and based on look and say, she's managed to get there through memory & guess
(C) I should be very concerned that trouble lies ahead for her with regards reading at ks3.

The evident mum posters have offered kind, reassuring advice; The I'm not sure who's have turned the end of this thread into some technical babble discussing the finer points of phonics, providing very little constructive help or advice to what we could do to pass next time. [sigh]