When is the phonics check please?

[EarthboundMisfit]

It must be soon, right? Is there a specific timeframe in which schools have to do it?

Thanks.

Mind you, it's a school that said last year that the test was biased against good readers, which I think is absolute rubbish.

Since this is the education board, I feel the need to clarify that I did intend practice to be a noun. :-)

I would complain if a school did lots of practise!
The whole point of the test is to find those children who are not picking up phonics and to give them targeted help. If the school does lots of practise they may mask those who need the help.

I'm not impressed with the phonics check at all. It is just a way for government to a) lazily measure progress and b) use it as a stick to beat teachers with.

My teacher knows how my son is doing in his reading. He knows which level is on. Why does he need a check too

The other thing which enrages me (yes it really does), is that, at the age of 6, my ds is being taught to dismiss "nonsense" words. What if he comes across new words later on and deems them to be nonsense because he's never seen them before? Therefore confusing him.

It is a stupid stupid idea.

And I will add, my ds is doing very well with his reading. We read a lot with him at home.
I've done hardly any of the online tests as I wanted to see what it was about, hence my feelings about the whole thing.

I did last year's paper with them yesterday out of curiosity, one got 39 and the other got 40.

They might have done it at school though. Who knows. They're good readers and not aware of the test so it's not a worry for me per se, I'm glad I now know when it is though!

Most would pass it at the end of reception never mind year one. The ones who don't pass are the ones you know are not going to pass I.e already getting extra help in a daily basis, what would have been considered 'remedial' back in the day. The advanced readers sometimes try to read the made up phonics rather than identifying them as made up ones, but they will still pass with a high score. The constant phonics emphasis is tiresome for advanced readers.

Does regular phonics teaching continue in Y2 for all children or just those in need of extra support?

In year two for everyone but emphasis switches from phonics for reading to phonics for writing I.e spelling etc
And same in year three.

Ours is this week. The school have been running after school phonics classes (1hr once a week) for around seven weeks now.

If a school needs to run after school phonics classes they obviously haven't been teaching phonics properly!

As far as I can see, the bottom line is that schools that teach phonics properly will see the screening as almost a non event and it won't worry them.

The screening test is needed for those schools who don't teach it properly and then need to run extra sessions, loads of practice etc. If a school is making a big song and dance about it, you have to wonder what they are worrying about.

Thanks mouldycheesefan.

The other thing which enrages me (yes it really does), is that, at the age of 6, my ds is being taught to dismiss "nonsense" words.

That is not recommended by any reputable phonics programme. It is not recommended as part of preparation for the phonics check. If teachers are doing this, they either don't understand how phonics should be taught, or they are doing it because they are not confident in how well the children understand what they have been taught.

The only reason nonsense words are used is to make the test accurate, by ensuring children won't just recognise words. This is standard procedure in reading assessment by reading psychologists. Children are told they are the names of aliens, and need to be decoded in the same way they should decode any unfamiliar word they encounter in text. The issue of whether it is a "real" word in the child's opinion should be irrelevant, because they will encounter many unfamiliar words in their reading in future.

Unfortunately, many teachers have not had proper training in how to teach phonics.

Well that may be the case but the damage is being done by calling them nonsense words.

There is no point, in my mind, of these tests. None.

If your child is struggling to read, the phonics test comes a bit too late to pick it up.

Also the screening check makes things more efficient but less effective as they can rely on the check as a less resource intensive method. It's all about saving money.

I say back off and let the teachers get on and teach with better accountability. We keep piling test after test after test on to our children. This has been going on for years.

Yet with no discernible improvements as far as I can see.

And what is being done to make sure parents get the support to help their children, seeing as that is a huge factor in educational outcomes...

Nothing.

Believeitornot how do you get accountability without some measurement of the teacher?

Why do you say they're described as "nonsense words", that is not how they're described -
www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-sample-materials-and-training-video/phonics-screening-check-structure-and-content-of-the-check

All pseudo-words in the check are accompanied by a picture of an imaginary creature. This provides a context for the child (naming the type of imaginary creature) to ensure that they are not trying to match the pseudo-word to a word in their vocabulary.

nonsense is not mentioned, they're pseudo words - and names of aliens are.

DD found the BFG very hard to read, because that is actually full of nonsense words, perhaps if she'd actually thought they were nonsense words rather than thinking they were real words she couldn't decode she'd've persevered more.

Head teachers make the teachers accountability. Governors make the head teachers accountable.

The only reason for testing is to measure success overall.

I say they're described as nonsense because that's what my DS has been taught.

I am am advocate of phonics and like it as a method. I do not like the testing.

My ds came across a couple of words which he did not recognise but were actually words, in the test. That's when it struck me just how silly the test was. He quickly went to skip over them - but the only reason for not recognising them was because he'd not used them before or recently.

The fact we are talking about pseudo words or nonsense words just illustrates further to me how silly it all is. Children are being taught this just for the purposes of doing a test....

So who has held your teachers accountable to using nonsense when that's not what the check expects, it sounds like the accountability you feel is in the system has failed in your scenario. His attitude to the words seems to re-enforce that, rather than highlight the failure of the check, it's the failure of the teaching, which has not (hopefully yet) been picked up.

As Kesstrel said above, they should not be taught nonsense words - they should be taught words not in their vocabulary that are phonically decodable in English, and Alien Names are a great description for that.

Sorry for the typos and misspelling. Was in a rush

One of my two had it today. He told me he got them all right. I asked if they told him that. No. Confident then?! :-)

Actually my point is that we are relying on accountability checks such as tests instead of giving head teachers autonomy.
So the checks just aren't there.

We have so many tests because it is a lazy way of trying to mark children and work out where they are on a scale. This is easier and cheaper for those who want to do the measuring. It is not for the children or teachers.

And alien names or whatever you want to call them is just as ridiculous. Because they will then need to disregard this as they get older as it has no bearing on reality. They're just needed for the purposes of a test, pure and simple.

Believe but he shouldn't be skipping any words, he should be using his phonics knowledge to decode them. If he skips words rather than sounding them out it shows he doesn't have/use the decoding skill.

Ultimately a child who doesn't/can't decode unfamiliar words should not meet the threshold for the check and so should be given extra support in y2. Which is the whole purpose of the check.

I wish it had been there when my DD1 was in infants. She is in 6th form now, and struggles to decode and pronounce unfamiliar words correctly . If her phonics had been better established she would find doing that easier now.

Think ours was last week, on the basis that our staff were dressed as aliens.

When I say skip, I mean he decodes it and decided it was "nonsense" (or pseudo or whatever) because he didn't recognise the word. However it was a word which was actually a real word - he just didn't know it as hadn't come across it yet. This was an online test.

That's my point.

So he got the phonics bit right but thought it wasn't a word as he didn't know it.

I can't remember the word - it is annoying me now! But it was one of those words which can be read in two ways but spelt the same.

Maybe it was a flaw of the programme he was doing.

I am happy for him to learn using phonics - and he is flying with his reading (one step from being a free reader).

I am not happy for him to be tested this way. It is a waste of time.

Teachers, if they were not over worked with large class sizes could do their job of spotting those who are in need of extra support. without the need for a test.

Why is my child's class time wasted by preparing for a phonics check? Why is time being wasted teaching him about pseudo words purely for a screening check? This is not about the practical application of phonics in real life. That's what reading books is about.

If teachers had more time, they would be able to sit down with children and read with them and work out what help they need.

So we should be looking to fix the structural problems with not enough teachers and classes which are too big.