Read Christine Blower's criticism and my 'readers' comments' response in 'Nursery World':More children passing phonics test
26 September 2014 by Katy Morton
Department for Education (DfE) figures for 2014 show that 74 per cent of Year One pupils, 474,000 children, met the standard expected for their age, up from 69 per cent in 2013.
This is equivalent to 102,000 more children doing well, based on the 2014 cohort, says the DfE.
There was also a rise in the number of children who achieved full marks. This year 15 per cent of pupils scored 40 out of 40, compared to 11 per cent in 2013 and nine per cent in 2012.
http://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/nursery-w ... onics-test
Here is my 'readers' comments' response:Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said, 'Teachers accept that phonics is one way to teach children to read but it is not the only one and does not suit all children. The amount of money being spent on solely on phonics materials is ridiculous particularly as the Year One Phonics Screening Check will tell teachers nothing they do not already know about the reading skills of the children in their class.
'This test is unnecessary and inappropriate for many children with special educational needs (SEN) and English as an additional language (EAL). It is vital that the methods we employ when we introduce young children of five and six years old to reading should bring understanding, reward and pleasure to them. Drilling children to pass a reading test will achieve the exact opposite.'
Sadly, Christine Blower is misguided in her attitude towards phonics teaching - it is fundamentally important. As a profession that is becoming increasingly aware of the contribution that research can make (for example, the extraordinary support and rapid rise in popularity of the researchEd organisation), there is no field where we have, at last, paid regard to research quite like the field of reading instruction. At long last, teachers are far more aware that each and every child must be equipped to lift the words off the page without resorting to lots of guessing - and that they must be professionally equipped to teach phonics. The Year One Phonics Screening Check has helped teachers to appreciate whether their teaching is effective enough in the bigger picture and compared to like settings.