England: DfE Year One phonics screening check + results

[debbie]

I am adding this link to the Reading Reform Foundation message forum which is about the NATE survey on phonics and the Year One Phonics Screening Check:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopi ... 56&start=0

[debbie]

http://www.education.gov.uk/sta/keystag ... 15/phonics

Key Stage 1 Check Administrators' Guide

For the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check 2014

[debbie]

Posting on blog 'Shinbonestar' bemoaning the Year One Phonics Screening Check by mrduttonpeabody (read the responses by John Walker of 'Sounds-Write' and myself):

Barking at Print

http://shinbonestar.org/2014/03/21/bark ... comment-74

The test itself consists of 20 real words and 20 nonsense words. Children have to segment out the single letter, double letter and triple letter combinations and then blend them altogether to say the entire real, or nonsense, word. They do not have to understand what the word means. They literally have to make the sound the letters imply, or as a former colleague put it, ‘bark at print’. This has led to some interestingly ludicrous situations over the past three years.

[debbie]

NUT (National Union of Teachers) video clip anti the Year One Phonics Screening Check:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1kzpEcYos4

Oh my goodness, how little they really understand.

I'll address their point but I need to go back to the video to write them down so that I don't miss anything.

Meanwhile, I visit many schools and teachers describe how different children are nowadays thanks to phonics - how well they can read and write - and how this is so much better than methods they used in years gone by.

[debbie]

Review of NUT video here:


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/for ... .php?t=585

[debbie]

Key Stage 1 and Phonics Screening Check guidance for Local Authorities:

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

[debbie]

I've started a new thread which I intend to comment on in more detail over time - based on the latest NfER review of the Year One phonics check in England (May 2014).

A link to this very interesting report can be found via the link below:

http://phonicsinternational.com/forum/v ... =1641#1641

One thing is for sure, teachers in schools in England are not generally providing the systematic synthetic phonics principles in a way that would be recommended by leading SSP authors - and the indications are that many teachers continue to also promote the multi-cueing reading strategies in addition which research findings warn us against!

[debbie]

Study looking at the validity and sensitivity of the phonics screening check for identifying children who may need catch up. Please note, however, that children needing catch up at the end of Year One are better identified in the earliest stages of systematic phonics teaching (Reception - at the beginning) in order to aim for 'keeping up' rather than addressing their learning difficulties at a later stage for 'catch up' purposes:

Validity and sensitivity of the phonics screening check: implications for practice

Fiona J. Duff1,*, Silvana E. Mengoni2, Alison M. Bailey3,4 andMargaret J. Snowling5

Article first published online: 13 MAY 2014

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 12029/full

Abstract

Background

Introduced in June 2012, the phonics screening check aims to assess whether 6-year-old children are meeting an appropriate standard in phonic decoding and to identify children struggling with phonic skills.

Aims

We investigated whether the check is a valid measure of phonic skill and is sensitive in identifying children at risk of reading difficulties.

Sample

We obtained teacher assessments of phonic skills for 292 six-year-old children and additional psychometric data for 160 of these children.

Methods

Teacher assessment data were accessed from schools via the local authority; psychometric tests were administered by researchers shortly after the phonics screening check.

Results

The check was strongly correlated with other literacy skills and was sensitive in identifying at-risk readers. So too were teacher judgements of phonics.

Conclusions

Although the check fulfils its aims, we argue that resources might be better focused on training and supporting teachers in their ongoing monitoring of phonics.

I think the Year One phonics screening check is very important.

It has raised awareness of the effectiveness of phonics teaching and how this can vary school to school and even from one local authority to another.

We have yet to have any attention paid to the effectiveness of different phonics programmes and training - and sufficient awareness raised that 'Letters and Sounds' is not a full teaching programme as it is incomplete in its content and provides no teaching and learning resources.

Thus, the most commonly-used publication continues to be 'Letters and Sounds', but most teachers appear to be still using 'multi-cueing reading strategies' according to the indications of the NFER report on the phonics check commissioned by the DfE (May 2014) - and yet the underpinning guidance within 'Letters and Sounds' is NO multi-cueing reading strategies.

All as clear as mud, then.

Some schools reporting to commercial programme authors and publishers - myself included (but not just for Phonics International and the ORT Floppy's Phonics Sounds and Letters programmes) - describe results of 9o+% in the Year One phonics screening check.

So, this is arguably what all schools should be aiming for - suggesting we have room for greater teaching effectiveness across England generally.

For example, I received this email from a headteacher on 12 May, 2014:

Our first Floppy's cohort (Reception 2011) are due to graduate from Y2 this summer - 98% are L2+ in Reading, and 40% L3+. Our previous baselines, you may remember, was 50% L2+ and less than 10% L3. Our 1 child not achieving L2 came to us at the beginning of Y2 from another school. This stuff seriously WORKS - but then you know that!

I refer to this paper and two other significant papers that were published in May 2014 for an article in SEN Magazine here:

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/for ... .php?t=655

[debbie]

John Walker of Sounds-Write writes a more detailed commentary than me about the York paper (noting some of the same issues as I raise above) via his 'Literacy Blog':


http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014 ... check.html

Friday, May 16, 2014

How valid is the phonics screening check?

The Journal of Research in Reading has just published an important and timely paper on the government’s phonics screening check ‘Validity and sensitivity of the phonics screening check: implications for practice’ (Duff, F.J., Mengoni, S. E., Bailey, A.M. and Snowling, M.J.

It asks two ‘critical ‘ questions: First, how well do scores on the screening check ‘correlate with reading skills measured by objective tests’? And, second, ‘is the check sensitive?’, which refers to how sensitive is the check is in detecting children ‘showing early signs of being at-risk of encountering a reading difficulty?’

[debbie]

Dorothy Bishop contributes an interesting posting on the check's results over two years and the 'spike' in the results at the critical figure of 32 out of 40 words reached or exceeded:


http://deevybee.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/ ... creen.html

[debbie]

This is a must-read blog focused on the issues around systematic synthetic phonics and the Year One phonics screening check - launched June 2014 by Gordon Askew (former adviser to the Department for Education in England):

http://ssphonix.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/ ... ening.html

I am aware some would claim that the price to be paid is too high if it means adding even further to the burden of 'testing' to which our little children are already subjected. This is pure nonsense. If handled correctly, the process of the phonics screening should, from the child's perspective, involve nothing more than individually reading to their own teacher for a few minutes - something they will routinely do on most days anyway. True, this particular little bit of reading is not the most exciting or engaging ever, but young children like the attention and enjoy showing their teacher what they can do - and it is, in any case, so short an experience as not to be an issue. Anyone who claims that this simple screening is tantamount to six-year olds sitting some sort of '11 plus' type exam or being forced through a traumatising experience is just scaremongering. If there is a negative to the actual process then this comes through teachers handling it badly or (and this is often the real problem now) spending too much time preparing children specifically for it. Where this happens it is totally and completely down to the teachers and schools and not to the screening itself.

[debbie]

Way back in 2012, Sir Jim Rose felt the need to jump in to address the ongoing attack of the UK Government's promotion of Systematic Synthetic Phonics by authors such as Michael Rosen:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/ed ... s-row.html

Authors including Michael Rosen, Michael Morpurgo and Philip Pullman have criticised the exclusive use of the phonics method of teaching, in which words are broken down into individual sounds, claiming it risks undermining children’s love of books.

However, they came under fire last night from Sir Jim Rose, author of a landmark review of literacy teaching which led to the renewed focus on phonics, first under Labour and then by the Coalition.

Sir Jim accused critics of trying to “destroy” phonics programmes, causing damage to children’s education.

[debbie]

https://www.gov.uk/phonics-screening-ch ... -the-check

The Year One phonics screening check threshold mark has just been announced (30 June 2014) and it is 32 out of 40 words decoded correctly!

Please do send me your school's results as it's important to work hand-in-hand with schools.

If your school is not reaching high 80+% or 90+%, then it could be that you need some training, re-training or follow-up consultancy - perhaps just a simple pointer or two from me via email or a phone chat!

[debbie]

Parents discuss the Year One phonics screening test results on 'Mumsnet':

Phonics screen results: How bad is bad for the school as a whole?


http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/primary/213 ... whole?pg=1

[debbie]

David Reedy of the United Kingdom Literacy Association, and others (including some teachers' union leaders) call for the abolition of the Year One phonics screening check via 'TES opinion':


http://www.phonicsinternational.com/for ... .php?t=678