Anyone else with a child who scored low in the phonics screening.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

Was it expected

What support is being offered

What can we do at home

Was this the first you heard of any problems ?

I think your 1st sentence is an important point, Gin.

The test was supposed to be a diagnostic screening check that identified the very small proportion of children who have an issue. Unfortunately there seems to be a huge amount of 'background noise' with many children failing because of the quality of reading teaching.

I think I'd be more inclined to do additional work at home if the school has a lot of children that don't pass, especially if I thought my child had an underlying issue. If every or very nearly every child that has had 2 years of teaching passes, then it's much easier to trust that the school know what they are doing.

I think it depends what form the 'help at home' takes.

Reading phonics-based reading books daily (from the library or something like Reading Chest if the school is sending home Look and Say books), encouraging sounding out of unknown words, stopping to talk about / collect examples of / play games with words that contain a sound / spelling correspondence that seems to be causing an issue - absolutely.

Specific 'training in the reading of isolated words, some with alien pictures, in the style of the Phonics test' - less so.

Gin- my ds is in the lower end of performance at school. Not low enough to be sn, but he's behind for his age and always has been.

He is expected to pass the phonics test but not easily like a lot of kids.

I am concerned that with a lot of home effort he could get through reasonably well but that extra effort on my part may mask a requirement for additional intervention, which the school should look into/provide, but my gut feeling is there isn't the budget for it so as long as he's scraping through (with lots of home help) that "solves the problem". I don't care about credit for me or anything like that, it's just that if my ds does need addition help/have additional needs he won't get it in the classroom or at school if he's been coached and tutored at home to scrape through from the very low end to low-middle.

For all I know he's dyslexic, but with a lot of tutoring from me he could pass the test reasonably well and then the school could say "he passed the phonics test though" as a point of reference/benchmark for all areas - yes but with so much more coaching than the average child should need! If you see my point.

My gut feeling is that of course I will coach/practise/tutor at home as it's instinct to help your child. However my fear is it could lead to him being overlooked for additional help provided by the school.

Star, if you follow suggestions from knowledgeable teacher like cantkeep, I think it will only do good for your dc.

Thanks Irvine, cantkeep and Rafals.

I do lots of reading at home and go through phonics with ds when doing so but I don't know the terminology (suffixes? Etc) or the technology as it were behind them. Now the test is drawing closer I am feeling like I should "brush up" on those with him using more formal material, especially as he's apparently nearly there on his own with the test material, (he can be inconsistent though) but equally I don't want to mask his needs. I think the school would be quite glad if he scrapes through but will it shut the door for future help? Such a dilemma.

StarHeartDiamond I'd say you don't need to do anything extra if you listen to your child read regularly and the books sent home are matched to child's phonic ability