Failed phonics y1 phonics test & advanced reader

[Robindrama]

( I have another thread here but will post specific question as a separate one) any ideas will be much appreciated.

Ds in y1. Just had a parents evening. End of year prediction: reading above expectation, but will fail phonics test.
Question: how can that be possible?

School reading levels are 1-26, 26 free reader. End of y1 expected level is 17/18. DS is currently on level 20. Excellent reading and advanced comprehension.
Phonics tests results 23/40. Expected to fail the test. I will have a meeting with teachers shortly.

school of confusion: this is exactly what I'm worried about, I hope that this is not common practice, you must have been so upset.

One of authors said (possibly Michael Rosen) than phonics were only meant for a particular group of children who were struggling.

I wondered how long it would be before Rosen popped up. It's been a while.

Chicken there's no need to worry. If your child is a good reader then they will be able to accurately read any new word put in front of them and won't need additional help.

Having a good visual memory isn't a barrier to having good phonic knowledge. The two go together hand in hand.

I would have failed the phonics test in year 1. I really didn't get phonics at all at that point.
I remember the sudden revelation when phonics made sense. I was 6yo, in year 2. And half way through the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. So even a young child can remember a fair number of words to read. Before anyone asks, yes I did understand it. And loved it. I didn't reread it until I was an adult and was surprised at how much I remembered, even word for word on some pages.
Pity I can't remember where I put my keys last night

Maybe that's why if you write the letters in the wrong order I can read it easily without skipping a beat. I can also read mirror writing and upside down with no problems.

I suspect give it another 10 years and another study will come out and things will go back to mixed ways.

My ds is a perfect example of Rafa's comment.
He learned to read without proper phonics teaching. Good visual memory and I assume he cracked decoding himself. Learned phonics at school. Enjoyed it.
Now he has perfect spelling and can read almost anything very easily.
It does work hand in hand.

School my son had a reading age over 13 when he started school and the school wouldn't acknowledge he had a problem (because they were fixated on his reading age) which is why he found himself being taught Phonics at secondary school age 13! If the phonic screening check had been around when he was in Y1 his needs could have been addressed early.
There is absolutely no reason a child who is already reading can't learn Phonics without undoing anything unless of course what they were doing already was ineffective.

It's pretty impossible to read the pseudo words in Lord of the Rings if you haven't worked out how letters relate to sounds.

We learnt to read and write for centuries using phonics alone. Whole language and mixed methods have been around for a few decades and failed thousands.
English is complex so why wouldn't you teach children how it works?

Or if their teacher reassuring the parents that ignoring what the check is telling them is the way to go (silly test!) and of course struggling o decode the simplest of words isn't a problem - at least two of those types of teachers evidenced on this thread.

My DS sometimes does struggle with new words, he recently pronounced "stoic" as "stoke" when reading an Octonauts book. I think that I just have to be there to correct him.

Or teach him that is one way we spell the sound /oy/

Having a good visual memory isn't a barrier to having good phonic knowledge. The two go together hand in hand.

Some DC are much much better at one than the other though. If DC has a reading age of 12 in Y2 (or whatever) I think it's a waste of time to make them sit through endless phonics.

Mrz that's interesting. Do you mean he had a reading age of 13 starting Reception?

If so, what caused his progress to slow down so much that he didn't have a more or less adult reading age by age 13? Did he make almost no progress through the whole of Primary & years 7&8?

But the 'oi' in stoic doesn't sound 'oy' does it? It's more stow- ick?

He actually had a reading age of more than 13 but that was as high as the test went

He had an adult reading age before he left primary but he couldn't spell so didn't write

Sorry Rafals I didn't realise he was a bad word ??

That's interesting Mrz

In our case dc passed the higher level reading Sats then did phonics. It messed her spelling up more than anything i. e hair bow became boaw (as O is an oa sound in things like boat)

Apologies ...that's what happens when you don't look at the word left to right and look at letter patterns

That's what I thought BarbarianMum, but having learned to read before today's phonic era I'm a bit clueless where they are concerned.

School that sound like incomplete teaching

OreoDream, my ds had 12+(can't remember exact number) decoding age at the start of reception. Still, the phonics teaching didn't hinder him in any way. I think it gave him more proper/structured understanding of what he was doing without thinking.
I definitely realise now(yr4) he is actually using phonics knowledge to decode or spell. Even he has great memory, there are so many words he has never met.

You're both correct Eddie the is the spelling for the sound /oe/ as in hold, cold, told, most, post, only, open, both, go, no etc etc as I said that's why reading letter patterns leads to errors

Some DC are much much better at one than the other though

Obviously and that's like many things in school. But both skills are important and used for different aspects of reading. They aren't interchangeable.

Normally what happens is that we help develop the weaker skills. But that's surprisingly controversial when it comes to reading.

What did they do before? I don't remember full phonics at school. I remember being given word cards starting with c.a.t cat which is obviously phonics of a sort but after the initial basic three letter words it was just word cards with pictures at the side so you recognised the word boat from the picture of a boat and then the picture was covered.

Might explain my appalling spelling

What did they do before? I don't remember full phonics at school. I remember being given word cards starting with c.a.t cat which is obviously phonics of a sort but after the initial basic three letter words it was just word cards with pictures at the side so you recognised the word boat from the picture of a boat and then the picture was covered.

Might explain my appalling spelling

natural' readers who learn very quickly are the ones with the great visual memory and the struggling readers are usually the ones with poor visual memory who have to use phonics

That is complete rubbish. We know from brain scans of adults reading that visual memory is not a major part of reading. The activity is in completely the wrong part of the brain. It is in the same part of the brain used by children when they are sounding out and blending.

If you don't use phonics to teach reading the struggling readers are the ones who haven't worked out the phonic code for themselves. Nothing to do with how good their visual memory is.