Two articles couched as a 'debate' in 'Teach Primary' magazine (April 2013):
'The Great Debate - Is it time to ditch the Y1 Phonics Screening Test?'
NO: Debbie Hepplewhite MBE FRSA
YES: David Reedy - United Kingdom Literacy Association
http://www.phonicsinternational.com/screener_debate.pdf
Debbie: The Great Debate re the Year 1 phonics test
Debbie: The Great Debate re the Year 1 phonics test
Debbie Hepplewhite
Responses on the UK Reading Reform Foundation site at
www.rrf.org.uk .
http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5671
www.rrf.org.uk .
http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5671
Debbie Hepplewhite
http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/sear ... epplewhite
John Walker begins to respond to Reedy's piece in the great debate via his excellent Literacy Blog.
This is quite ironic as I, too, have written a response to Reedy and will post it shortly.
John Walker begins to respond to Reedy's piece in the great debate via his excellent Literacy Blog.
This is quite ironic as I, too, have written a response to Reedy and will post it shortly.
Debbie Hepplewhite
http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013 ... reedy.html
John Walker continues with his critique of Reedy's article which is important as Reedy is representing the United Kingdom Literacy Association - very worrying if this is the level of 'understanding' in the UKLA!
John Walker continues with his critique of Reedy's article which is important as Reedy is representing the United Kingdom Literacy Association - very worrying if this is the level of 'understanding' in the UKLA!
Debbie Hepplewhite
http://www.nonweiler.demon.co.uk/Y1_Phonics_Check.pdf
Some people may find this a useful PowerPoint to share discussions with colleagues about the issues raised regarding the advent and content of the Year One Phonics Screening Check.
You can find the 40 words used in the 2012 Year One Phonics Screening Check on this PowerPoint.
I encourage independent schools and schools teaching English in other countries to try the assessment with their pupils when they have had a couple of years phonics teaching (thus, they've covered a 'simple code' and have been introduced to a substantial portion of the 'complex code').
Some people may find this a useful PowerPoint to share discussions with colleagues about the issues raised regarding the advent and content of the Year One Phonics Screening Check.
You can find the 40 words used in the 2012 Year One Phonics Screening Check on this PowerPoint.
I encourage independent schools and schools teaching English in other countries to try the assessment with their pupils when they have had a couple of years phonics teaching (thus, they've covered a 'simple code' and have been introduced to a substantial portion of the 'complex code').
Debbie Hepplewhite
http://literacyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013 ... loney.html
John Walker's final blog entry re Reedy's report and explanation of teachers' responses.
John Walker's final blog entry re Reedy's report and explanation of teachers' responses.
Debbie Hepplewhite
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22783399
The results of teachers' pupils have surprised some of the teachers themselves and other people - hence the debate about whether children are 'beyond' the phonics stage (there is no such thing as even literate adults apply phonics knowledge and skills to read and spell new, longer and more challenging words).
I suggest, however, that we should acknowledge the various consequences and advantages from undertaking the Year One Phonics Screening Check across the nation:
1) The teachers are accountable for their class results. Teachers need to understand about 'effectiveness', 'inclusion', 'research and leading-edge practice' and 'special needs' - and how teaching methods and materials really do make a difference. Teachers should be professionally, and morally, curious to see how well their pupils are faring compared to others. How will teachers really know their effectiveness if they are unaware of the results of other teachers' pupils - especially in similar circumstances?
2) The local authorities need to understand how their schools compare to other regions. Local authority advisors should embrace national snapshot testing as part of shared professional development - and embrace their responsibity as they have 'advisory' authority which can influence the practice in schools.
4) The universities providing teacher-training need to understand the different methods and how these lead to different results. Many lecturers are not directly experienced in rigorous, systematic synthetic phonics programmes and practice. They, too, should have a high level of professional curiosity and accountability.
3) The government needs to understand how effectively schools are teaching their children in broad terms having heaviliy promoted the need for systematic synthetic phonics teaching and used public money for the match-funded phonics initiative. Where literacy is weak, of course governments should take a moral and social interest in this issue.
I don't read anywhere in the press that large-scale national, objective testing is really important in the domain of basic reading and writing because of large-scale illiteracy and weak literacy across the world and particularly in the English language for which the alphabetic code is very complex and challenging.
So, where is the wider, deeper analysis of the advent of the Year One Phonics Screening Check?
Does anyone actually 'say it as it is'?
[Please note: I have also posted this message on the UK Reading Reform Foundation message forum where the article above was posted. I added that I already had my first results from a school in South America where staff really do want to know how their children are faring with their phonics teaching.]
It's a great pity that the Year One Phonics Screening Check was not, from the outset, put forward as an information and accountability tool on all levels.Phonics test 'accurate but unnecessary'By Katherine Sellgren
BBC News education reporter
The new phonics tests for six-year-olds in England is successfully identifying children who struggle to read, but is no more informative than existing teacher assessment, research suggests.
The results of teachers' pupils have surprised some of the teachers themselves and other people - hence the debate about whether children are 'beyond' the phonics stage (there is no such thing as even literate adults apply phonics knowledge and skills to read and spell new, longer and more challenging words).
I suggest, however, that we should acknowledge the various consequences and advantages from undertaking the Year One Phonics Screening Check across the nation:
1) The teachers are accountable for their class results. Teachers need to understand about 'effectiveness', 'inclusion', 'research and leading-edge practice' and 'special needs' - and how teaching methods and materials really do make a difference. Teachers should be professionally, and morally, curious to see how well their pupils are faring compared to others. How will teachers really know their effectiveness if they are unaware of the results of other teachers' pupils - especially in similar circumstances?
2) The local authorities need to understand how their schools compare to other regions. Local authority advisors should embrace national snapshot testing as part of shared professional development - and embrace their responsibity as they have 'advisory' authority which can influence the practice in schools.
4) The universities providing teacher-training need to understand the different methods and how these lead to different results. Many lecturers are not directly experienced in rigorous, systematic synthetic phonics programmes and practice. They, too, should have a high level of professional curiosity and accountability.
3) The government needs to understand how effectively schools are teaching their children in broad terms having heaviliy promoted the need for systematic synthetic phonics teaching and used public money for the match-funded phonics initiative. Where literacy is weak, of course governments should take a moral and social interest in this issue.
I don't read anywhere in the press that large-scale national, objective testing is really important in the domain of basic reading and writing because of large-scale illiteracy and weak literacy across the world and particularly in the English language for which the alphabetic code is very complex and challenging.
So, where is the wider, deeper analysis of the advent of the Year One Phonics Screening Check?
Does anyone actually 'say it as it is'?
[Please note: I have also posted this message on the UK Reading Reform Foundation message forum where the article above was posted. I added that I already had my first results from a school in South America where staff really do want to know how their children are faring with their phonics teaching.]
Debbie Hepplewhite
Another news story about the Year One Phonics Screening Check:
http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/ ... 4/phonics/
If you watch the video, the first thing you'll notice is a lovely little girl doing some actions with her hands. She is trying to make a beat whilst saying the sounds, then she is trying to do an action whilst blending the sounds to say the whole word.
The little girl is not entirely 'smooth' with these actions.
And the sad thing is that they are totally unnecessary and a sign of misguided phonics teaching.
When I observe teachers providing phonics lessons, I find it is common that the teachers are 'teaching' hand actions which are totally muddling up whether the focus phonics skill is a print to sound decoding routine (for reading) or a sound to print encoding routine (for spelling).
The hand routine for reading:
When scanning a printed word from left to right to 'notice' any letter groups, then sounding out the sounds for the letters and letter groups from left to right in the word, the only hand action which is supportive and appropriate is finger tracking directly under the printed word whilst saying the sounds, and then perhaps running the finger under the whole printed word from left to right whilst saying the whole spoken word.
We saw an adult doing this type of finger-tracking on the video - but the little girl wasn't doing it.
The hand routine for spelling:
For the spelling routine (sound to print), the hand routine is tallying the sounds identified all through the spoken word to thumb and fingers of the left hand, palm facing - to note how many 'sounds' there are in the word that need to be accounted for (select letters and letter groups as code for the sounds).
Should nonsense words be used in the screening check?
The questions and rationale raised in the video clip about the appropriateness of using the nonsense words to test decoding are entirely misguided too.
When children learn to read, they are either reading the words for the very first time in their books or they are reading words which are new to them in terms of 'brand new' - that is, they are not even in the child's spoken vocabulary.
Such a new word is actually the equivalent of a nonsense-word until the child does know the meaning.
This shows that children need to be able to decode any words - whether the words are being read for the first time but are within the child's spoken vocabulary, whether the words are 'new' but unknown in that they are not in the childn's vocabulary - or whether the words are totally made-up words - as is often the case in creative literature such as poems and stories.
The life-long knowledge and skill that we need for reading is comprehensive alphabetic code knowledge (the letter/s-sound correspondences) and the ability to say the sounds and 'discern' the words - whatever those words may be.
It is not true to suggest that it is not appropriate for children to be able to decode nonsense words - as so many new and unknown words are the equivalent to nonsense words.
It is not true to suggest that children would want to make sense of the nonsense words when they have already been told that they are nonsense words. They are simply nonsense words - and in the screening check, little creatures are drawn alongside to make it clear to children that they do not need to try to turn the words into 'real words'. So, this is simply not a valid explanation as to why some children read the nonsense words incorrectly.
Finally, about the little girl who was reading fluently at the end of the video. This girl may well be a lifelong competent reader - or she might fall into the group of children who start to stall when the vocabulary within the books becomes increasingly challenging - and the pictures and context is not always so obvious.
She might also fall into the group of children who, as they read silently to themselves, are so used to reading quickly by making sense of the text, that they are not truly accurate readers - and might 'skip' a lot of words rather than pay attention to the details.
Most adult readers are probably 'skip' readers when reading silently to themselves, but the point is whether we can decode new and challenging words if we wanted to or needed to.
Some of our young pupils as they proceed through our education system do begin to stall out and do find that the literature becomes too challenging and unappetising for them. Mostly their teachers probably don't even realise what is going on in the world of the young person regarding their true reading ability and reading habits (that is, are they competent decoders whatever the type of words in the books or are they habitual 'guesses' who have 'got by' in previous years from making sense of the text rather than decoding the text accurately and 'then' making sense of the text).
So, would I leave any children out of the phonics teaching or the phonics screening check? Definitely not.
Many teachers reported in response to the last check that their 'better readers' did not get the nonsense words right.
So, think about it - are they really suggesting that 'better readers' or 'able readers' should not be able to decode accurately simple nonsense words such as those included in the check?
I find it extraordinarily worrying that we have so many teachers in our profession - and educational commentators - who just don't 'get it'. They just don't understand the role of the check and what it is really telling us about children's decoding skills, their reading habits, the type of teaching the children are receiving, their type of reading experience (that is, is it still multi-cueing guessing strategies?) - and the lack of common professional understanding of our teaching profession.
We have a long journey ahead before we share a common understanding of reading instruction!
http://www.itv.com/news/meridian/story/ ... 4/phonics/
If you watch the video, the first thing you'll notice is a lovely little girl doing some actions with her hands. She is trying to make a beat whilst saying the sounds, then she is trying to do an action whilst blending the sounds to say the whole word.
The little girl is not entirely 'smooth' with these actions.
And the sad thing is that they are totally unnecessary and a sign of misguided phonics teaching.
When I observe teachers providing phonics lessons, I find it is common that the teachers are 'teaching' hand actions which are totally muddling up whether the focus phonics skill is a print to sound decoding routine (for reading) or a sound to print encoding routine (for spelling).
The hand routine for reading:
When scanning a printed word from left to right to 'notice' any letter groups, then sounding out the sounds for the letters and letter groups from left to right in the word, the only hand action which is supportive and appropriate is finger tracking directly under the printed word whilst saying the sounds, and then perhaps running the finger under the whole printed word from left to right whilst saying the whole spoken word.
We saw an adult doing this type of finger-tracking on the video - but the little girl wasn't doing it.
The hand routine for spelling:
For the spelling routine (sound to print), the hand routine is tallying the sounds identified all through the spoken word to thumb and fingers of the left hand, palm facing - to note how many 'sounds' there are in the word that need to be accounted for (select letters and letter groups as code for the sounds).
Should nonsense words be used in the screening check?
The questions and rationale raised in the video clip about the appropriateness of using the nonsense words to test decoding are entirely misguided too.
When children learn to read, they are either reading the words for the very first time in their books or they are reading words which are new to them in terms of 'brand new' - that is, they are not even in the child's spoken vocabulary.
Such a new word is actually the equivalent of a nonsense-word until the child does know the meaning.
This shows that children need to be able to decode any words - whether the words are being read for the first time but are within the child's spoken vocabulary, whether the words are 'new' but unknown in that they are not in the childn's vocabulary - or whether the words are totally made-up words - as is often the case in creative literature such as poems and stories.
The life-long knowledge and skill that we need for reading is comprehensive alphabetic code knowledge (the letter/s-sound correspondences) and the ability to say the sounds and 'discern' the words - whatever those words may be.
It is not true to suggest that it is not appropriate for children to be able to decode nonsense words - as so many new and unknown words are the equivalent to nonsense words.
It is not true to suggest that children would want to make sense of the nonsense words when they have already been told that they are nonsense words. They are simply nonsense words - and in the screening check, little creatures are drawn alongside to make it clear to children that they do not need to try to turn the words into 'real words'. So, this is simply not a valid explanation as to why some children read the nonsense words incorrectly.
Finally, about the little girl who was reading fluently at the end of the video. This girl may well be a lifelong competent reader - or she might fall into the group of children who start to stall when the vocabulary within the books becomes increasingly challenging - and the pictures and context is not always so obvious.
She might also fall into the group of children who, as they read silently to themselves, are so used to reading quickly by making sense of the text, that they are not truly accurate readers - and might 'skip' a lot of words rather than pay attention to the details.
Most adult readers are probably 'skip' readers when reading silently to themselves, but the point is whether we can decode new and challenging words if we wanted to or needed to.
Some of our young pupils as they proceed through our education system do begin to stall out and do find that the literature becomes too challenging and unappetising for them. Mostly their teachers probably don't even realise what is going on in the world of the young person regarding their true reading ability and reading habits (that is, are they competent decoders whatever the type of words in the books or are they habitual 'guesses' who have 'got by' in previous years from making sense of the text rather than decoding the text accurately and 'then' making sense of the text).
So, would I leave any children out of the phonics teaching or the phonics screening check? Definitely not.
Many teachers reported in response to the last check that their 'better readers' did not get the nonsense words right.
So, think about it - are they really suggesting that 'better readers' or 'able readers' should not be able to decode accurately simple nonsense words such as those included in the check?
I find it extraordinarily worrying that we have so many teachers in our profession - and educational commentators - who just don't 'get it'. They just don't understand the role of the check and what it is really telling us about children's decoding skills, their reading habits, the type of teaching the children are receiving, their type of reading experience (that is, is it still multi-cueing guessing strategies?) - and the lack of common professional understanding of our teaching profession.
We have a long journey ahead before we share a common understanding of reading instruction!
Debbie Hepplewhite