2013 FREE Year One Phonics Screening Check materials

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debbie
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2013 FREE Year One Phonics Screening Check materials

Post by debbie »

http://orderline.education.gov.uk/books ... 1783150700

I do encourage schools to use these materials even if they are not in England and do not have to undertake the Year One Phonics Screening Check in their school.

A number of schools in England have contacted me in great excitement at their Year One phonics results.

Sometimes, they have a high score similar to last year's check - and greater excitement still is when scores have risen considerably this year compared to the 2012 check.

It is this professional curiosity and sense of excitement and satisfaction that is so good to see.

Imagine the literacy implications for the children themselves if nearly every child has reached, or nearly reached, the threshold mark! :D

PLEASE NOTE:

This material is immediately accessible online and it is FREE.

If any schools (in the UK or overseas) wish to share their results with others, or even just with me, please do contact me at:

debbie@phonicsinternational.com
Last edited by debbie on Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Debbie Hepplewhite
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Post by debbie »

http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/sear ... epplewhite

I'm adding this link here to address the continuing criticisms in the media of the statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check in England including the much-misunderstood use of the non-words in the check.

I shall also add the links to the debate referred to in John Walker's blog and my further response to David Reedy of the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA).
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Post by debbie »

'The Great Debate' in Teach Primary:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/screener_debate.pdf
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Post by debbie »

My response to David Reedy to his piece for 'The Great Debate':


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/reedy_response.pdf
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Post by debbie »

http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/fi ... 202012.pdf

The link provides brief descriptions of how three schools addressed weaknesses in their phonics provision over time - continuing professional development.

I was interested to see comments about schools not 'grouping' or 'setting' for their phonics provision but providing 'extra' sessions to keep children up with the class pace.

This is what I would advocate for the vast majority of children unless they have serious special needs.

Here in England, however, one of the leading SSP programmes is based on creating multiple small groups whereas the other leading programmes are not - they are based on a steady pace with lots of practice under the main supervision of the class teacher.

Both approaches work (and no doubt various other organisational approaches according the contexts of the schools and cohorts) - and it is important that schools account for their results not that they feel forced into any particular type of organisation.

I have had to complain to the DfE and Ofsted in the past because of feedback to me that 'advisors/consultants/inspectors' had instructed or advised schools to change their organisation to the multiple group approach which is actually very difficult to organise - especially if you don't have many members of staff (and the class teacher cannot supervise teaching and learning because he or she is teaching at the same time).

Good to see that schools were informed by their results from the Year One Phonics Screening Check - one school described it as a 'wake up call' and after changes very different results were achieved by the next cohort!

Rigour and consistency is very important - and phonics in discrete sessions and applied within the wider curriculum.

This can be supported, of course, with good use of the giant and mini alphabetic code charts which are free to download at:

www.alphabeticcodecharts.com :wink:
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Post by debbie »

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _Guide.pdf

The 2014 Key Stage 1 Administrators' Guide now published.
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Post by debbie »

Just bumping this thread up as it's the season for phonics assessment at least in England!

As soon as the DfE 2014 check is available, I'll link to it in case schools not in England wish to take advantage of its (free) availability to see how their pupils are doing - and to compare with results in England if that has any interest or relevance in various contexts.
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Post by debbie »

Here is a link to the results on the 'Feedback' forum using the 2013 Year One Phonics Screening Check in The British School of Costa Rica:

http://phonicsinternational.com/forum/v ... 5&start=15

Imagine how thrilled the teachers were in Costa Rica, teaching children for whom English is their second language, to achieve a result 19% higher than the average result for schools in England! That is 88% compared to 69%!
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Post by debbie »

Susan Godsland flagged up an interesting paper about the use of non-words in the Year One Phonics Screening Check:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5988

As Elizabeth Nonweiler suggests, real words can be used for phonics provision which may well not be in the learners' oral vocabulary.

This means they are the equivalent of 'non-words' in terms of the practice they provide to decode them accurately - but they also provide opportunities to develop language comprehension - increasing learners' stock of words.

I do not provide non-words in the Phonics International and Floppy's Phonics Sounds and Letters programmes as there are so many words in the cumulative word banks and sentences/texts which will be 'new to decode for the first time' for young English-speaking learners and which may be new in terms of word not previously known.

When the learner is an English-speaker, this may require only the teaching of a few new words in the word banks in terms of 'meaning'.

When English is a new or second language, there may be many (or all) of the words which are unknown to the learner in terms of the meaning of the words.

In which case, as the teacher, don't expect to teach the meanings of ALL the unknown words - just select one or two of the most useful at that time.

So, the learner gets plenty of practice of DECODING the bank of words as a technical SKILL and the teacher makes an appropriate limited selection of those words to expand on the meaning.

Accept, then, that there are times when following a full systematic synthetic phonics programme with non-English speakers, that developing language comprehension can take place to an extent within the phonics sessions - but can also take the place outside of the phonics sessions - in which case there will be no restrictions at all on any 'sounds' covered by the phonics programme at that point.

In other words, the SPOKEN language lessons are not necessarily linked to the systematic phonics provision - but can focus on greetings, common and appropriate themes - body, self, family, colours, common objects in the class, home, community - and so on.

After a period of time, there will be more and more overlap with the spoken language comprehension provision and the systematic phonics provision.

Please note: I am currently writing an assessment and intervention resource packed full of real words and cumulative texts - but with the addition of some cumulative non-words - coming shortly!
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Post by debbie »

This is a 'must read' blog with postings about the Year One phonics screening check and many other issues to do with phonics - written by Gordon Askew, former advisor to the Department for Education in England. This gentleman knows what he is talking about and is 100% supportive of systematic synthetic phonics teaching.

He is also well-aware of the many detractors there are to phonics and that even here in England, teachers are not necessarily up to speed with high-quality, content-rich, systematic synthetic phonics teaching:

http://ssphonix.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/ ... sense.html
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Post by debbie »

Excellent news - you can now find both the 2013 and 2014 free Year One Phonics Screening Check materials here:


https://www.gov.uk/government/collectio ... ning-check

I continue to urge all schools teaching English to beginners to make good use of the very good free materials - all worked out by experts to assess alphabetic code knowledge and the blending (decoding for reading) skill.

If you do use these, please consider sharing your results with me/others.

Good luck! :wink:
Debbie Hepplewhite
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