Failing the phonics screening

[Falcon1]

I've just been informed by DD's school (because I asked) that she only got 21 out of 40 in her phonics screening in December. The pass mark was 32. She is Year 2 (the test was delayed due to covid). She's below expectations in reading and writing and really hates/struggles with reading. Her spelling seems to suggest a lack of basic phonic knowledge. For instance, she recently spelt favourite as 'fafrt' and colour as 'coley'. My question is, is this score (and her struggles) indicative of something like dyslexia, or could she just be a bit of a late developer? I've been concerned about her progress since reception but I keep being told not to worry, lockdown has had an impact on their learning, she'll get it eventually etc etc. The school said they categorically do not support dyslexia assessments as the council won't fund them. I listen to her read every day (which is like pulling teeth as she hates it so much) and I read to her a different book at bedtime, and always have done. We have a reading chest subscription, play phonics games and do Reading Eggs (which she also hates). It just doesn't seem to be sinking in.

Have you considered developmental language disorder? It could be a language difficulty which is really common but people don’t know about it. I’d get her assessed by a speech therapist as she had a delay and now struggling with literacy and spelling.

I would try and teach her yourself to see how she gets on with 1:1 rather than a class situation. I bought a pack from amazon that is Read Write Inc and is brilliant for showing parents how to teach phonics. The first pack includes sound cards, wall frieze etc for the set 1 sounds. There are further packs for when they move onto further sounds. They are Ruth Miskin, Read Write Inc.: My Reading and Writing Kit: Early sounds and blending. Then you can say she's had every possible chance to learn if she still isn't making progress.

You have described my son, also in year 6, similar state with failed phonics screening and very behind in his reading and writing.

My son is July born so not 7 until after the end of year 2.

We have a strong history of dyslexia in our family and I pushed for him to be added to the SEN register last term so the interventions school were putting in place (daily reading and a phonics group) were properly recorded. From my experience the threshold for an SEN plan seems to have risen considerably. My older child failed her phonics screening and was immediately registered with an SEN plan, but that was pre covid and now I had to really push for it.

Anyway, just this week we have had the report back from his private assessment to confirm he has dyslexia and I agree with the poster who said it’s money well spent. He now has a very detailed report highlighting his strengths and weaknesses and ways in which school can help him.

But you have to be pushy, in my experience with school and continually ask how they are being included especially when they are so far behind their peers. Just yesterday I noticed the starter challenge on the board for the kids in his school when I dropped off. Firstly it was written in that awful cursive font and secondly the wording was way above his reading level. I know they didn’t have a simpler task for him to do. The board task was to copy the sentences out and correct the incorrect spellings. Well I know full well he would not even be able to read the sentence, much less do anything else.

So he starts his day bewildered and unable to do anything, sigh.

So yes, to answer your question, it could well be a sign of dyslexia but don’t wait for school to actually do anything about it. Add her to a waiting list for a private assessment and you will probably have it sorted before she starts year 3.

Before then keep pestering school for details on how they are including her and making work accessible for her.

You need to get a really thorough assessment of her hearing.

The spellings you gave as examples show she might not be hearing distinct F and V sounds, and missing Rs (ignore this if your accent is not rhotic).

How is her speech? How does she pronounce S, Sh, Ch, and Th, F, and V sounds?

@Falcon1 yes that’s what bothers me most, not that he’s ‘behind’, but that he knows he’s behind the rest of the class and it bothers him. He’s such a lovely child, and has so much more to offer the world than his ability to meet govt standards for handwriting and literacy.

@Goldberg213

Look at something like dyslexia gold online. It’s a great system to support developing readers and to assess dyslexia

It's not great TBH, the women who runs it in the UK is "unusual" and they seem to think that convergence insufficiency causes dyslexia (whilst eye muscle conditions don't help if you do have dyslexia they definitely do not cause them). If you look at their facebook page they are very quick to dismiss anyone with purposeful comments. Although some of their teaching methods look fine - but they're not really my remit.

OP First of all have a proper eye exam and check she can see; a free NHS one at a local optician is fine. They will also check for eye muscle issues. I'd also second the hearing test, if she's not hearing properly she can't spell.

Coloured overlays only work occasionally. I find about 1 in 20 people with dyslexia like them.

Oh and as my husband (reading over my shoulder) has just reminded me, a lot of the basic eye checks which used to happen in schools - which were very basic, but did pick up some children with eye issues, weren't carried out due to covid.

I've seen a couple of children recently who have really poor vision in one eye - one due to a small squint and the other due to having one eye that had a very different prescription to the other. Both would have been picked up beforehand. You can read with one eye, but it's much more tiring.

I think you also need to get her to a SLT to assess for language disorders, given the speech delay.

I suspect any assessment referred by the school will be seriously delayed given the covid hiatus and the resulting backlog. You will need to go private ( still expect waiting lists, but maybe not as long).

It's important to crack reading before subject matter requires solid reading skills (decoding, fluency, and comprehension) plus the ability to stick with a frustrating task.

Does sound very like my DD who is dyslexic and struggles with phonological awareness, hearing sounds in words, stop for example written as sop. Can't get the double constanant sound at the beginning.

I think it often presents as what they call a spiky profile? So she may be very strong in some areas, DD does ok with reading for example excellent oral communication, but she just can't spell words she can easily read or get on paper what she can say.

They can assess for dyslexia from 7, reluctant to do it before. We paid for a private report from a specialist teacher if you have the money I would recommend it, but it is a lot of money. It helped DD's self esteem, showing her where all her strengths are and the things she may struggle with. She is now on Senco register at school and has personal plan which will go to each new teacher and secondary.

If you've any doubts I would suggest talking to the Senco teacher at school and starting getting it investigated, it may be just her age but no harm in asking what they think. Incidentally school did a basic screener with her in year 1 and it came back as unlikely to be dyslexic, by end of year 2 spoke to me again and said they were pretty sure she was. I probably could have pushed it earlier, but did feel a lot easier having school's backing in reccomending assessment.

She is struggling with phonological awareness, which is the ability to discriminate and manipulate the sounds in words. Approximate 1:4 children struggle with this for a range of reasons, including dyslexia. Anecdotally there are more children struggling with learning to read at the moment because of a reduced exposure to books and reading during covid (children are exposed to a huge amount of incidental reading at school, difficult to do at home).
Phonological awareness skills can easily be developed with practice, like building up a muscle through exercise. Google phonological or phonemic awareness games.
It might not solve all of her difficulties but it should help a lot.
www.readingrockets.org/article/phonological-awareness-instructional-and-assessment-guidelines

One in five people have dyslexia so it could well be that.
Nessy is brilliant, whether or not the child is dyslexic.

Hi, I'm primary teacher in Scotland, and although our curriculums are different we also focus on phonics within literacy, so I think some of these points might still be useful for you. I currently teach primary 1 (reception class) however have been across l stages, giving me the pleasure of working with so many different learners. Right from the start children have their own way of learning, and to mark their progress like this in tests is so demoralising, as it doesn't show the whole picture. As a teacher I have to follow a set plan, however I do also adapt that to meet my children's abilities. Phonics difficulties are one of the biggest problems I encounter in learning. I understand this could be because of an undiagnosed condition, but can also just be that some children don't have the correct skills to use this type of knowledge and understanding, My class are a long way from any potential diagnoses, so I like to focus on the here and now, looking at their strengths and how we can use that to our advantage. For example most children that struggle with sounding out have a good visual memory, therefore they are able to see shapes/ patterns in common and tricky words, and after continuous reinforcement of these will remember them. We usually use this to build up a word bank of go to words, ones they can use to write simple sentences, then when they come across a tricky word they don't know we look at the environment around us, walls/ books etc. I've seen once children get this success they start to develop a positive attitude to learning, although doesn't fix phonics issue they are more willing to tackle other activities that they wouldn't before. Another possibility is tacking a step back and looking at onset and rhyme, instead of each letter being sounded out individually it groups them together, for example "at" is the rhyme and changing onset would make cat, rat, mat, this can be extended to 2 letter onset's, for example using "op" rhyme to make drop, flop. Only once they are confident with all rhyme would they move back on to phonics, as they would now have the correct skills to build, beak and blend the words. It's not an over night fix, so although I see my children progress it can take a while but most do get there, however in the mean time I would always make sure their learning, resources etc are adapted appropriately to allow them to access full curriculum, ensuring the literacy difficulty doesn't hold them back. Again another example I had boy with excellent mathematical knowledge but very poor literacy skills, he was unable to read text book, copy/ complete sums from board, so he was given a printed out version, with words removed, and instructions given orally, this allowed him to achieve top of class in maths. Sorry if it's too much me waffling on, but I hope it helps a little

Would also recommend looking up Nessy - a great programme www.nessy.com/en-gb

One in five people have dyslexia
Maybe 5% but definitely not 1 in 5.

I thought that figure was too high @drspouse

Wow, lots of really helpful advice here, thank you all. We're actually getting her eyes tested today and I know they do hearing tests too, so I'll ask.

She has had a dyslexia screen, which came back as unlikely to be dyslexia, but interested to hear from the poster who said their child ended up being diagnosed despite the negative screening.

RedToothBrush - yes, I had heard that about year 2 as well, and according to DD's teacher, there are plenty of children in the class who are also struggling. Our poor kids.

To the poster who suggested one on one work, lockdown was enough to put me off this for life. She point blank refuses to engage in anything she perceives as 'learning' with me now. I think we are both traumatised by the home learning experience! She does have a tutor however and has had for a year, which is why I think she shouldn't be as behind as she is.

I'll look up all the suggestions here - toe by toe I've heard of and it sounds really interesting. Nessy too.

Thank you everyone

My daughter was similar. Couldn’t really read or write at all at that age. Hated any formal literacy. Lockdown was a disaster as me and H worked full time. She has been given interventions at school now and is now in year 4 and has made a lot of progress. She is now at the bottom of the average for her age! Which for her is tremendous progress. More importantly, she has now found things she likes reading so is reading for pleasure, so I am hoping that will help progress her learning. Maybe she was just not ready at that younger age. Schools do push formal literacy very young in the UK. Some kids are not ready for it.

RedToothBrush - yes, I had heard that about year 2 as well, and according to DD's teacher, there are plenty of children in the class who are also struggling. Our poor kids.

I know my sons year really well. Ive volunteered to help them since many of them were in nursery.

I reckon that in my son's class there's probably 5 or 6 who I think are struggling more than I'd expect, but i dont know the parents well enough to be sure. In the other class one parent has told me outright - and she used to be a deputy head of a primary. My suspicion is the other class are having similar problems to my sons, though possibly not quite to the same degree (other factors with teaching staff).

A friend who is a teacher at another school said they are having particular issues with yr2 too.

And friends who have children across the country who are in yr2 all seem to be saying the same thing.

From that point of view, yes you need to get your daughter back on track, but shes probably more on a parr with children across the country than you fear.

It will be interesting to see whether this really is a thing, and whether data on this becomes public in the months ahead.

@falcon1
Honestly if I were in your shoes I'd push for a dyslexia assessment (even pay for one privately).
The reason I say this is it feels like you described my child years ago. They hugely struggled with phonics, spelling & reading. Couldn't read until 8 & was in learning support throughout primary. I did query dyslexia, the school did a spelling test with my child at 10 & told me no, not dyslexic.
Fast forward to now, they're in their last year of secondary. We've now had the test & they're dyslexic. Scored in the bottom 10% for 2 categories including phonics. They had learned the phonics at school eventually by rote but had never fully grasped phonics. Now as an almost adult they can't sound out phonics in the middle of words.
I wish we had learnt this years ago so we could have helped them and their bad academic reports & teachers saying they were lazy, sloppy & constantly daydreaming could have been avoided.
Get her tested, if it isn't this then great you've ruled it out.

To the poster who suggested one on one work, lockdown was enough to put me off this for life. She point blank refuses to engage in anything she perceives as 'learning' with me now. I think we are both traumatised by the home learning experience!
Then you don’t want to do toe-by-toe, it is long and boring. Unless you will suggest that the tutor does it with her?
Which interventions do the school offer?

If you want a structured programme to work through then something like this might help. www.hertfordshire.gov.uk/microsites/local-offer/media-library/documents/resource-area-documents/spld-phonological-awareness-pack-pdf-6mb.pdf
It is free and works through all the phonological skills needed for reading.

The school said they categorically do not support dyslexia assessments as the council won't fund them.

That is the most shocking thing I've read.

You will have to have her privately assessed and become her advocate, I'm afraid. Welcome to the club.

My DS got a score of 4 out of 40 in year one, year 2 it doubled to 8.
He's now in year 3 and can read at the expected level.
I just don't think he was ready. When he got it, it finally clicked and he can read chapter books no problem now.

Favourite and colour are both exception words though.

But you will have to find a way to be involved. That is far and away the best predictor of how she will get through this. Don't do what you hate. But do something! Mrs Wordsmith games, white board writing with onset and rhyme, word bingo, grouping words together according to spelling patterns and putting them in a zoo, setting a timer and rewarding after each session, entering a Zen like state.... These children are in need of lots of one to one such as only a parent or nanny can provide. I went through exactly the same thing and I dug deep and we found a way.