England: DfE Year One phonics screening check + results

[debbie]

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/tea ... ning-check

Full information about the national Year One phonics screening check in England.

It is right that the government wants to get a picture of children's decoding ability in England when so much time and public money is being invested in promoting systematic synthetic phonics teaching.

[debbie]

http://www.wroxham.herts.sch.uk/phonics/Gibb.pdf

Letter from the Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, providing information and reassurance re the Year One national phonics screening check.

[debbie]

http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/ ... 8632199279

This is a very interesting posting about the phonics screening check on a great blog!

[debbie]

http://kevinwheldall.blogspot.com.au/20 ... -ikea.html

Kevin Wheldall on the advantages of being able to read non-words!

[debbie]

It is notable that a number of teachers have reported their surprise that some of their better readers did not read the screening check's non-words accurately.

A number of these teachers suggested that the children were not able to read them because they were trying to make the non-words into real words.

I have a different hypothesis.

I suggest that this was not neccesarily the case. The children were told in advance that the words were not real words - and to aid this understanding, little drawings of aliens were shown alongside only the non-words. There was no reason why they should have tried to make the non-words into 'real' words in these circumstances.

Children who tend to 'read' books from a variety of cues such as picture cues and context deduction - and who may strive for fluency and perhaps apply their own level of common sense - may not be attentive to the details of words from left to right and may not use a blending strategy routinely or at all.

So, when faced with any form of reading, they may instinctively take a good guess. It is less likely with previously unseen non-words that a quick guess will be accurate enough - hence apparently good readers getting the non-words wrong.

The very same children may be perfectly capable of reading the non-words accurately by slowing down, applying their blending skill from left to right - in other words, increasing their attentiveness and applying the phonics they have been taught.

I have heard this is indeed the case when such children were asked to read such words after the event.

Children who read books should be just as capable of reading words in lists - they should not be context-dependent to read the words.



Children with a 'multi-cueing' type of reading profile are simply not used to blending all-through words routinely and automatically - their default strategy is more likely to be the guessing of unknown words.

[debbie]

Many people have complained about the non-words in the Year One Phonics Screening Check in England. They fail to realise that all words are non-words when learners do not have those words in their spoken vocabulary (and 'new vocabulary' is common within literature).

Everyone has to be able to decode words whether they are 'real' or 'non-words'.

Thanks to Susan Godsland who flagged up this link on the Reading Reform Foundation message forum, here is a lovely example of the need to be able to decode non-words!

http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/02/gobblefunk.html

[debbie]

The Department for Education (DfE) guidance following the results of the first full Year One phonics screening check:

The phonics screening check – responding to the results
Departmental advice for Reception and Key Stage 1 teachers

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... 0final.pdf

[debbie]

Here are the official results of the Year One phonics screening check and the end of Key Stage One assessments in England:


http://www.education.gov.uk/researchand ... gland-2012


http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... 1-2012.pdf

[debbie]

Here is an article, dated December 2011, that reported on the Year One Phonics Screening Check pilot project:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16091737

Note that only 32% of children in the pilot achieved the benchmark for words decoded.

In the following year's nationally rolled-out Year One Phonics Screening Check, 58% of children achieved the benchmark.

I wonder what results we'll get next year (June/July 2013)?

Only yesterday I was speaking with a teacher in a large primary school where 60% of the children reached the benchmark - she said she could not wait for next year's check to see the results they would get as the children coming through have received better and better phonics teaching as the staff improve their knowledge and skills.

I have yet to note any articles in the press describing the positive responses of teachers that I hear so much of:

Teachers who:

*are professionally curious as to how well the children will do

*are professionally curious to know how well their children achieve compared to other children in other schools - in similar contexts and in different contexts

*describe enjoying the process of the phonics check and how their pupils have enjoyed the process

*know that their school's teaching is getting more effective with children becoming increasingly empowered to read really well and to write so much better than ever before (compared to previous cohorts of children)

*describe the interest of their pupils' parents - turning out for parents' information events in numbers larger than ever!

*who report that 80+% to 100% of their children reached the benchmark of the phonics screening check -

Where are these positive issues, and consequences associated with the phonics screening check, reported in the media?

[debbie]

We've just uploaded a couple of papers on the Phonics International 'Free Resources' webpage which refer to the national Year One Phonics Screening Check. These might be interesting for parents to read not just teachers:


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Tho ... honics.pdf

I attended the Westminster Education Forum Seminar on assessment on behalf of the UK Reading Reform Foundation and submitted the following written response (as these get published with the transcript of the event) to specific questions raised about the Year One Phonics Screening Check:


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/Wes ... ite%20.pdf

We've grouped the above two papers with one already on the 'Free Resources' page as they all link together as possibly being of interest to parents:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/FR_ ... elling.pdf

[debbie]

The official draft of the

Phonics screening check

2012 Technical report

(Standards and Testing Agency):



http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... _final.pdf

[debbie]

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/radio.html

This is a five minute interview on BBC Radio KENT regarding results of the Year One Phonics Screening Check.

It is an example of one of the benefits of the check in informing teachers about the effectivness of their teaching compared to what may be possible.

This is all part of 'continuing professional development' which is fundamentally important.

[debbie]

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... _final.pdf

See from page 9 for the list of letter/s-sound correspondences that may be included in the Year One Phonics Screening Check.

I've responded to requests to include some additional material at the end of Unit 6 to introduce some letter/s-sound correspondences ahead of the usual PI order.

This is because many schools are finding that they have comfortably taught units 1 to 6 by the end of Year One and they just want that extra coverage to meet the possible requirements of the Year One check with this level of timing.

The following grids may be of interest to PI schools - see the additional Activity Sheets I've added at the end of unit 6:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/PI_order.pdf

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/2_I ... embers.pdf

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/3_p ... embers.pdf

The grids above can be found on the Free Resources page of www.phonicsinternational.com .

[debbie]

http://phonicsinternational.com/forum/v ... ?p=906#906

I thought I'd like to link to this posting about 'The four biggest myths of the anti-testing backlash' on this thread.

In England, there has definitely been an 'anti-testing backlash' played out in the media. Sadly, I have not seen any quality journalism describing the range of issues associated with the advent of the Year One Phonics Screening Check - only the negative reactions stirred up by some vociferous individuals.

[debbie]

Thanks to Jenny Chew who posted this information about the UKLA response, and various MPs' response, to the Year One Phonics Screening Check on the UK Reading Reform Foundation message forum:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5648

I'm afraid that the UKLA comments and survey go to show that there is no 'common understanding' of the findings of the first statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check in England.

I was recently invited to write a short article about the check for Teach Primary magazine which I hope to be able to link to once it is published. I address some points noted in the UKLA survey results which provide a different perspective from conclusions drawn by many taking part in the survey.