'Light-touch, phonics-based check' for Y1 children

chew8 · **Joined:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 6:26 pm **Posts:** 3593

Just for the record:

My view is that children should not need more systematic phonics teaching in Key Stage 2 provided that the teaching before that has been good - they should need no more than occasional light-touch reminders. If the earlier teaching hasn't been good, however, then they obviously need systematic phonics in KS2. I've helped voluntarily for 11 years at a KS2 school, and I've certainly encountered children there who have needed it - but I've also encountered a fair number who have not needed it.

Jenny C.

Susan Godsland · **Posted:** Sun Dec 18, 2011 9:26 pm

Sounds-Write and the DfE's Y1 Screening Check

http://www.sounds-write.co.uk/docs/Soun ... _check.pdf

Quote:

If you feel the need to evaluate your current strategy, here are some questions you
may want to ask of any phonics scheme you consider:

Does it teach the following spelling/sound correspondences: <a>, <b>, <c>, <d>,
<e>, <f>, <g>, <h>, <i>, <j>, <k>, <l>, <m>, <n>, <o>, <p>, <q>(u), <r>, <s>, <t>,
<u>, <v>, <w>, <x>, <y>, <z>, plus some consonant two-letters spellings, <ch>,
<ck>, <ff>, <ll>, <ng>, <sh>, <ss>, <th> and <zz> in words with the structures CVC,
VCC, CVCC, CCVC as outlined in Section 1 of the screening test?

Does it also teach the following vowel digraphs: <ar>, <ee>, <oi>, <oo>, <or> as
outlined in Section 1 of the screening test?

Does it teach the following spelling/sound correspondences: <a-e>, <ai>, <ay>,
<aw>, <ay>, <ea>, <e-e>, <er>, <ew>, <ie-e>, <ie>, <ir>, <oa>, <o-e>, <ou>, <ow>,
<oy>, <ue>, <u-e>, <ur>, <air>, <igh> as outlined in Section 2 of the screening test?

And, does it also teach the consonant digraphs: <wh> and <ph> as outlined in
Section 2 of the screening test?

Moreover, does it teach the vital skills of blending, segmenting and phoneme
manipulation necessary to enable children to be able to use the code knowledge you
have taught to read and spell proficiently?

Finally, does the programme already include the opportunity to practise regularly
blending and segmenting pseudo (nonsense) words?

Susan Godsland · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:33 pm

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 644820836A

Quote:

The Government's new reading test for six-year-olds could face a boycott from teachers.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) is expected to warn at their annual conference next month that the check is "unnecessary and inappropriate".

The union is due to discuss a motion which contains an amendment calling for a campaign against the test, including a ballot for a boycott if the results are used in league tables.

Ministers announced plans for the test at the end of last year amid concerns that children with poor reading skills were slipping through the net.

The test is based on phonics, a system which focuses on sounds rather than recognising whole words, and has been promoted by government as the best way to boost reading standards. Pupils are asked to sound out or decode a series of words, some of which are made up, to test their reading skills.

The NUT's motion opposes the Government's claim that the check will raise reading standards and says that each child learns to read in a different way.

It says: "Conference asserts that the introduction of statutory testing of phonics for all Year One pupils is unnecessary and inappropriate.

"Conference maintains that there is no evidence that learning phonics 'fast and first' has a positive impact on children's long-term reading ability or enjoyment of reading."

The resolution says the test will have financial implications for schools, could lead to more teaching to the test and increase teachers' workload. It calls on the NUT's executive to raise the union's concerns about the test with government and to highlight their worries to parents and the public.

NUT general secretary Christine Blower said there were concerns that the test included "non-words" as well as real ones, and that the test was "decoding, it's not reading".

chew8 · **Joined:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 6:26 pm **Posts:** 3593

Groan!

Jenny C.

Debbie Hepplewhite · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 8:58 pm

I wonder how many other people in influential places are so ignorant of the realities (and reading instruction and phonics subject knowledge) and so devoid of common sense?

Derrie Clark · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:36 pm

Quote:

The Government's new reading test for six-year-olds could face a boycott from teachers.

Well if they do I hope they use a boycott to negotiate quality training in the teaching of phonics and a reduction in the rest of the curriculum. If they don't have the tools and time they will not know how to teach these early skills and knowledge, nor understand how necessary and appropriate the test is.

Debbie Hepplewhite · **Posted:** Sun Mar 25, 2012 11:40 pm

Do you get the impression that Christine Blower supports phonics training then?

chew8 · **Joined:** Sun Nov 02, 2003 6:26 pm **Posts:** 3593

I can't see Christine Blower supporting phonics training if she allows herself to be quoted as saying that the test is "decoding, it's not reading".

Jenny C.

Derrie Clark · **Posted:** Mon Mar 26, 2012 8:36 am

Yes, I agree Jenny, which is exactly why teachers as union members at the ground level/chalkface need to be pro-active in lobbying their Union Reps. Teachers have had to teach early literacy skills through ineffective methods dictated by Cental Government for years and then been blamed when the teaching doesn't work. You can hardly blame Christine Blowers becoming enmeshed in a blame game and defensiveness.

Christine Blowers needs to be asking how KS1 teachers are being enabled through professional development; and revised Foundation and National Curriculum; and class size in deprived areas that enable children to establish effective relationships with adults, etc etc. Not forgetting, of course, how KS2 and KS3 teachers are being supported to bring on the basic literacy skills of the 1 (2/3?) in 5 who have failed and continue to fail for exactly the same reasons.

Lesley Drake · **Posted:** Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:26 pm

The last time the NUTs conference was in Torquay in 2005 or 2006 I made my "maiden speech" in favour of Jolly Phonics.

There was a small ripple of applause because a) most of the delegates don't sit in on the Early Years debates so the hall was three-quarters empty and b) because those remaining knew extremely little about synthetic phonics programmes then and many were anti the idea of anything being made "compulsory."

However, in subsequent conferences the national executive of the NUT has gone out of its way to display a visceral dislike of phonics. It's not a question of them being ignorant, it is a political stance.

They are anti phonics becausel

Phonics equals formal teaching, is right wing, is imposed, doesn't fit their world view of little children flitting from flower to flower discovering everything, they might be held to account over it, someone is telling them what to do, every child is different and so on.

The NUT is run by a bunch of aging Trots who wouldn't know a digraph from a consonant cluster and are proud of it.

Their members deserve better but sadly union activism is the last thing on most normal teachers' minds so these wastes of space rule the roost.