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.

And assessment is meant to identify those children who may require support to apply phonics for reading and writing rather than wait until they fail.

Unless you know phonics, you don't know how to say new words you come across. For sight reading, you are reliant on someone first telling you what the word is, then committing the sound and appearance of that word to memory.

DD3 has a tendency to sight reading and will read a passage over and over again until she remembers what each word looks like. Her school have worked really hard with her to teach her the phonics rules in extra sessions to overcome her tendency to sight read and plump for the nearest word that looks a bit like one she remembers.

However, you can't say that a child who fails can't read properly. Maybe it's true, he can't. Or maybe the student teacher was holding the phonics screening materials upside down.

sugar, I haven't RTWT, only your OP. I wouldn't worry one bit. DD failed her phonics test too (I think it was the first time they had been done, must have been 3 years ago).

We knew she was bright and interested and didn't really give it much thought. We did subscribe to Reading Chest though. It was fantastic for her and we went through and finished their levels by the end of yr2. DD is still a voracious reader.

Now, just 9 at the end of Y4 she has just been given 4B as a level (more measuring) - I had to look it up last night, we knew she was fairly bright but it looks like it is much better than expected at this age.

So, if she is happy to learn, bright, interested, I would just carry on reading with her at home, reading fun and interesting things to engage her - obvs just my opinion and I know very little about it other than dealing with DD.

I too hate the word 'fail' at this age.

Professor of human development and applied psychology Keith Stanovich (2000) offers an up-to-date reputable review of the cause and effect relationship of children's overall reading ability, and their ability to decode pseudowords. For example, he cites several experimental studies that conclude " the speed of naming pronounceable nonwords is one of the tasks that most clearly differentiates good from poor readers " (p. 40). Also, " the persistent differences between skilled and less skilled readers in reaction times to pseudowords seem to be due to processes...operating on subword processes " (p. 41). One of these "subword processes" is the application of phonics rules to recognize written words.

Studies of the reading of pseudowords also have implications regarding the performance of poor readers with high and low IQs. It is found (Stanovich, 2000, p. 329) "that these two groups of children display equivalent pseudoword reading deficits." This kind of evidence leads some reading researchers to conclude that "unless it can be shown to have some predictive value for the nature of treatment or treatment outcome, considerations of IQ should be discarded in discussions of reading difficulties.

Wiig was one of the early researchers to study syntax and semantics (Wiig, Lapointe, & Semel, 1977). This research consistently demonstrated deficits in various semantic and syntactic abilities among children with learning disabilities. For example, these children demonstrate deficits in the ability to apply morphological rules (formation of plurals, verb tenses, and possessives are some examples). Also, comprehension and expression of syntactic structures have been identified as a deficit area among these children. These syntactic structures include relationships between words in sentences and phrases. Understanding who a pronoun applies to and what function is served by a direct object and an indirect object are examples of this syntactic skill.

One of my DC got phonics very quickly - more advanced than other in her class mainly as we did a lot of extra phonics at home.

I've had to spend a fair bit of time at least since Christmas ensuring she actually applies her knowledge to text - when previously didn't have to - as her school has spent a lot of time and energy discourage this and encouraging guessing - on pretext of improving fluency and sounding more grown up when reading .

She passed her phonics test but only just - test her on her phonics and she is fine but has to be reminded to when reading to actually apply it and not guess.

I'm wondering if this could be your problem OP ?

Fortunately we've come along way in the last four decades

It sounded to me as though this was very likely to be the problem, lantien. And if the school encourage guessing rather than sounding out and blending the child is going to do what they are told to do...

As so many people on this thread have pointed out, the use of phonic knowledge and skills is needed throughout life when unfamiliar words are encountered. The problem with teachers like that of the OP's dd is that they seem to think it is a skill to be abandoned once initial reading instruction has finished (or, in the case of this teacher, when it is only half way through!). It seems to arise from a poor understanding of the reading process and poor teacher training.

The figure of 1 - 3% of children struggling with phonics comes from several sources. I first encountered it in a paper by Solity written in evidence for a Dfes sponsored seminar on phonics in about 2004. I have since seen it cited in other papers.

From the look of this thread, it doesn't seem as though contextual awareness has progressed any in that time.

"Wiig, Lapointe & Semel, 1977 indicated that deficits in processing and producing oral sentence structures persists among children, adolescents and adults with specific learning disabilities, little empirical research has examined the grammatical structures of such individuals’ written text"

Adults, presumably without learning difficulties, reading within this thread have had contextual difficulties with completely discernible words.

I'm certainly having difficulty with yours, DoraGora

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How do you do that, mrz?

It's an app called emoji ????????????????????????????

Thank you lavender for your reassuring post

And yes lantien, I now suspect that is dd's problem.

I think what has alarmed me is posts on here that tell me ENTIRE classes passed the test apart from 2 kids who have SEN... Didn't really reassure! It seems that some posters (and this is no criticism of those posters, I do appreciate all input!) don't recognise any scope for there being a bright child who has obviously proven her phonics skills during yr 1 (otherwise wouldn't be in top group phonics), but has somehow failed on the day.

Given another bright child also failed, there is possibility test was administered incorrectly? Also, im not sure they prepared the kids at all for the test this yr - I seem to recall my son having to practice aliens words etc. DD had nothing of the sort.

I think we will do more obb /Bob practice over summer, just to make sure everything is embedded and she doesn't fall back into lazy ways.

Very interesting thread nonetheless, I wasn't a phonics child and I admit I've never really fully understood the theory - I guess I have that "I didn't do phonics at school and I'm perfectly alright" kind of attitude. I wonder perhaps that's half my poor dd's problem . Although I've never projected that into her. I do certainly understand phonics a great deal more since starting this thread.

I think there is a possibility that the test has been administered by someone not quite sure what they doing (if left to a student without training). I also think it's possible that moving onto ORT has encouraged your child to guess rather than read accurately (the books were written this way).
It's encouraging that your child can decode accurately which suggests a blip on the day but it is worth keeping an eye on things.
The check only covers basic phonics and there's much more to teach/learn in Y2 so I would hope that the next teacher builds on her skills and knowledge.
Good luck

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Thanks mrsz, I will definitely be keeping an eye. I didn't realise ORT was written in that way.... Some of the books she brings home date back to the 1980s so presumably were being used during the non phonics teachings in the 80s. We will do our local library challenge this summer so will make sure we don't choose any darn buff and chip books

Biff, not buff

The new lower level books are phonic based but ORT are still publishing books that were written in the 80s for the Look and Say method. They rely on repetition and guessing.
The problem is that some teachers believe that when children move from phonic based books they need to use other strategies such as using the illustrations, guessing what the word might be so that the sentence makes sense (which can completely change the intended meaning) thinking of words they know that start with the same letter ...and decoding as last resort. As the most effective strategy it should be the first and only strategy needed.

reading chest - is good for getting access to phonics based reading schemes.

I've found that helps - books full of decodable words and insisting that she actually decodes while reading - and hiding pictures so she doesn't look for clues all help but it is just practise.

Hold up the phonics cards and she knows them it is just applying them in reading texts - a completely unnecessary problem in our case.

The not practicing non words, shouldn't really be an issue. It isn't necessary. So I wouldn't worry too much about that. In some ways it is better not to.

Summer Reading challenge sounds like a great idea. I would have thought she'd be able to manage some of the simpler early readers which might give her a bit more variety.