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.

They don't contract phonic strategies.

Those strategies teach tat there in a correspondence between the grapheme and the sound.

Your examples are decodable, once that part of the code is taught. A rare correspondence is still s correspondence

@Nat6999, recognizing the shape of words along with prediction from the sense of the text is how fluent readers read. It's absolutely possible for children to learn this way if parents read a lot to a child and are prepared to re-read many books on demand.

[quote mathanxiety]@Nat6999, recognizing the shape of words along with prediction from the sense of the text is how fluent readers read. It's absolutely possible for children to learn this way if parents read a lot to a child and are prepared to re-read many books on demand. [/quote]
That's a bit outdated.

They've scampnned DP brains whilst reading, and found that the parts which 'light up' are those used to decide. What is happening is that the princess is so fast, fluent readers are unaware that's what they are doing. Until the brain activity evidence was available, people often thought that they were recognising the whole word.

Guessing the meaning (even if you call it 'prediction') is a notoriously poor strategy

recognizing the shape of words along with prediction from the sense of the text is how fluent readers read. It's absolutely possible for children to learn this way if parents read a lot to a child and are prepared to re-read many books on demand.

It’s really not. If children aren’t taught how to read properly, using phonics to decode the text, then they will never be able to read words like quidditch, hufflepuff, Sauron, or Gollum, unless they have an adult there to tell them what it says. They can never be an independent reader.

@AuntieStella I can't work out the code for 'one' and 'once'!

Can't you?

You really can't see that when there is no preceding letter the split grapheme 'o....e' is 'wuh' (in jargon, a voiced labio-velar approximant plus schwa) when followed by 'n' and the word is one syllable or a one syllable sememe at the start of a compound word.

And if you think DC can't follow ever more complex rules, never play Yu-Gi-Oh.

They don't need to learn the linguistics jargon, just that 'when these letters appear this way, this is how you say them. So when they encounter a world like 'oneself' for the first time, they know to apply the rules from 'one' as an option in sounding out the word ('on-ess-elf' would also be a possibility, but a child who knows the phonic code and should try the possible options until they find the string of sounds that matches a word they know.

Someone who doesn't understand how the code works for 'one' would also not be able to read words such as someone

‘One’ has three phonemes: wʌn
The wʌ is represented by the grapheme o_e and the n is represented by the grapheme n.

Stella: as a dyslexic, no,I'd never realized that. I'd have guessed for a word like bone, and said o_e says the letter name O. I've never twigged the letter before could change things.

@MaizeAmaze

Stella: as a dyslexic, no,I'd never realized that. I'd have guessed for a word like bone, and said o_e says the letter name O. I've never twigged the letter before could change things.

That's because it doesn't happen very often at the start of words - it's much commoner alsewhere

So you probably have the rule that tells you which letters before o/n/e produce what sound. For example, you'd know that you don't rhyme 'bone' with 'gone' or 'done'

And then to annoy even further, sometimes (with a different set of correspondences) you can have two possible sounds after the same consonant - 'wound' (the injury left you with a nasty wound, and you're still all wound up,about the accident)

The correspondences between sounds and the letters that signify them aren't one-to-one in either direction. That does mean that English is harder for people to learn. But despite that, spelling reform has never gained traction as a policy

Adults who weren’t taught the alphabetic code explicitly find all this even more complex - but most Y1/Y2 children could read these words and confidently explain to you how to decode themselves.

I usually have around 3 children in my Y6 class who are dyslexic but because of their explicit teaching they could explain this to you in spelling lessons.

It isn’t a big deal for children.

I am a teacher of special needs and have taught literacy for 30 years. Phonics is excellent and 99% of children will learn to read with it. However, some children don't and their lack of progress whether because of a dyslexic type issue; a language issue or a processing issue causes them great stress and leads to hating reading and often by extension writing. I work with year 3 and 4 children who have failed to learn to read and initially I use a sight words programme called Words First from www.shop-soundlearning.co.uk. The first story is based on just 12 high frequency words which are taught before reading the book. The scheme is supported by word learning; comprehension and writing packs. The children I've used it with have been successful and it has been possible to re-introduce phonics which are needed for decoding and spelling.

However, some children don't and their lack of progress whether because of a dyslexic type issue; a language issue or a processing issue causes them great stress and leads to hating reading and often by extension writing. I work with year 3 and 4 children who have failed to learn to read

Or a lack of training issue, poor quality teaching issue. Why do you have Y3 and Y4 children who can’t read? That’s not usual. The only children we have in KS2 who can’t read have recently come from overseas - using quality first teaching, we can have them reading fluently in months.

The only children I have ever known in 30 years of teaching who genuinely could not learn to read number just 4 - all went on to specialist SEND secondary settings and had many problems than an inability to understand phonics.

I’m in no leafy lane school, either - we have 32% pupil premium and 37% EAL in an inner city deprived area.

I recommend following Ann Sullivan on Twitter for anyone working with SEND children. She is excellent.

www.phonicsforpupilswithspecialeducationalneeds.com/

My DS is yr 2 and has just had a private full dyslexia assessment. However he did have a screen and it didnt 'diagnose' as that is not what is for it highlighted the areas he required support in and provided 2 pages of specific strategies around the areas. He has issues with spellings, reading and writes phonetically. They advised that he had issues with processing and should learn to touch type and have an additonal 25% time when doing his work. He is 7 and they do start to screen at around this age and the advice is to get assistance early and not wait.

I have him seeing a sen teacher at the weekend, she has signed him up to nessy reader and has provided him with booklets which teaches him different ways to learn to spell and its fun. She has also suggested colour overlays as he does have issues with saw/was etc. She is going to organise this at the weekend.

You shouldnt start trying to use overlays etc unless you know what your doing. My DS school is awaiting the full report and then will ensure they support him.

@Elisheva

‘One’ has three phonemes: wʌn The wʌ is represented by the grapheme o_e and the n is represented by the grapheme n.

Thank you for being polite

Why do you have Y3 and Y4 children who can’t read? That’s not usual.

You would think from this comment that no British children leave school functionally illiterate.

My dd failed her phonics screening and has just got an A* in her English GCSE. It means very little. She didn’t learn through phonics - some children don’t.
They won’t access for dyslexia until she is in year 3. But honestly don’t worry about it.

The best thing to do if you’re worried is Toe by Toe.

You would think from this comment that no British children leave school functionally illiterate.

But it’s a fact that in some schools, they don’t. Why is that?

You would think from this comment that no British children leave school functionally illiterate.

Where does this idea that ‘some’ children don’t learn using phonics coming from? It’s not true and there isn’t a single study that will say so. There are a very very few children with very complex needs that struggle using any method - and struggle with lots of other things besides. Poor training and poor teaching is more likely to blame.

Coffeeonmytoffee, my ds is the same age as yours and our children would have been the first year of phonics screening. They had a pass rate that was the lowest in the LEA and didn’t even teach phonics every day. The head just said the same thing - not every child learns using phonics. I taught him myself, but obviously that’s not ideal for very parent.

Fast forward to a new head and they had a pass rate of 94% last year - I know the staff and the 6% represent two new to English children who should also be fluent by next year.

What changed? Did they suddenly start getting intakes of children who CAN learn using phonics? Or did they get a head who stopped believing at old wives’ tale that has no basis in studies or research and overhauled their phonics teaching?

People have, I think, been slow to realise that phonics isn't a new-fangled idea. It's the traditional method, and it's also been shown to out-perform the experimental methods of the 60s-90s(ish)

But people who learned to read during the experimental period can easily end up think in that how they were taught must be the way it always used to be done. It really isn't

@mathanxiety

Why do you have Y3 and Y4 children who can’t read? That’s not usual.

You would think from this comment that no British children leave school functionally illiterate.

Very very very few children leave school unable to read and write. Sensationalist headlines do not help the perception of this though when they talk about SAT 'pass rates'. The SATs are not a test of functional literacy: they are so far beyond that and have been for years.

The thing that bothers me the most about this is the automatic assumption- by schools, parents, EPs, everyone, that there is something ‘wrong’ with the child.
This child is not learning to read - what is ‘wrong’ with them? Is it dyslexia? Their eyesight? APD? Processing?
I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a school who says, this child is not learning to read - what is wrong with their teacher.

My dd never did master phonics. School humiliated her constantly and complained to me that she was going to fail in her education if she couldn't read and completely missed the fact that she had taught herself how to read (at a pace that was comfortable for her) with graphic novels and other books that she was interested in and was reading novels at home. School failed to diagnosis or even recognize her dyslexia which was finally diagnosed with some private testing that I paid for when she was 9 or 10. At this point she was reading just fine, but still needed extra time for certain types of reading (like science or texts with lots of new words) and I wanted to make sure she was receiving the necessary accommodations. She is now in her 3rd year of university studying philosophy (having skipped multiple grades despite her dyslexia). She still can't spell worth beans, but knows to use spell check and have someone else check her spelling before turning in assignments. She reads slower than her peers, but gets accommodations for that and tries to use audiobooks etc.

@Elisheva

The thing that bothers me the most about this is the automatic assumption- by schools, parents, EPs, everyone, that there is something ‘wrong’ with the child. This child is not learning to read - what is ‘wrong’ with them? Is it dyslexia? Their eyesight? APD? Processing? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a school who says, this child is not learning to read - what is wrong with their teacher.

This is because, in the event of an individual child struggling, it is far more likely that the barrier be child-based. If it was the teacher (lack of training/understanding/etc.) then it would result in more than one child struggling.

This does happen and is addressed through training, support and, if necessary, capability procedures.

If it was the teacher (lack of training/understanding/etc.) then it would result in more than one child struggling.

More than one child is often struggling because teachers operate a keep up if you can method but whether anyone notices is a different story.