First of all let me say I totally agree with teaching children phonics- I've seen some incredible successes with phonics teaching and children who easily learn to read. I'm becoming less and less certain however that a test for all Year 1 children is the way forward. The only good thing might be that schools which are not teaching phonics in a systematic way (and there are quite a few!) will be forced into doing it properly.
The latest guidance about the Year 1 Phonics decoding test (I refuse to call it a check any longer- it is quite clearly a test) is now out. It includes a video of children sounding out mainly nonsense words, as they will do in the test. Go to the DFE website to view the video if you want to see something really depressing.
Having told all the schools I'm working with that the check was 'light touch' and, if they were teaching phonics, nothing to worry about, I am now forced to revise this assessment. In the light of the video the check is definitely a test and the controls more stringent than SATs!
The video has many different children, most looking quite uncomfortable, sounding out the words, with a tick or a cross appearing on the screen and an explanation of why it is right or wrong. I started off thinking that the children were not looking happy and finished with a sense of despair. If a child says the word correctly but follows that up with an incorrect answer, you ignore the first response and the word is marked wrong. It also shows that good readers will probably be at a disadvantage.
A child who is already well on the route to reading and has a significant sight vocabulary, which is of course a very useful skill for reading, tends to look at the nonsense word and try and make it make sense. They are past the stage of using phonics to decode every word and want to read for meaning; which is after all what we need to be teaching. I rather cynically wondered at the agenda that requires good readers to take a step back and read nonsense without any regard for meaning.
I very much hope all those schools I've worked with who are putting their poor children through the test, will not have stressed out children and teachers, but I can't help feeling that will be the main result of the week of 18th June.
