Following on from yesterday’s post and some broader observations about the South Australia Phonics Screening Check, I want now to look at the detail of the Check. I’m not going to go into the issue some people have with pseudo or nonsense words. The rationale for using pseudo words has been explained many times before.… Continue reading The 2017 South Australia Phonics Screening Check (Part II)
So, after much kerfuffle and a huge amount of opposition from a wide range of (mainly) university academics, the teaching unions, and assorted self-proclaimed pundits, South Australia has just reported the results of an opt-in version of the Phonics Screening Check. It was taken between 7th and 18th August 2017 and it was exactly the… Continue reading The 2017 South Australia Phonics Screening Check
Once again I feel obliged to respond to an article posted by Misty Adoniou in The Conversation and, as I have pointed out previously here and here, Misty is as foggy as her name when it comes to talking about phonics. In order to arrest the decline in reading ability, Australia is currently considering adopting the England’s Phonics Screening Check. Misty’s… Continue reading The continuation of the war against phonics by other means
Three weeks ago, the government released the threshold mark for the Phonics Screening Check. The check was implemented by the government because it provides a quick and cost effective way of determining whether teachers are teaching phonics effectively. This is because top quality phonics instruction, taught to young children from the moment they enter school,… Continue reading Phonics across the curriculum
Ever since the Phonics Screening Check was introduced, an argument has raged around the introduction of non-words as a means by which to test the literacy of children in Y1 (aged five to six years). Sounds-Write has been using non-words in an activity/game called Nonsense Word Sound Swap for many years. The activity involves asking… Continue reading The whys and hows of using non-words.
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… Continue reading How valid is the phonics screening check?
I’ve been looking at an example of the phonics screening check from the DfE’s website. Here’s what it looks like in terms of structure: Section 1: the words and how they are structured in terms of consonants and vowels: tox CVC, bim CVC, vap CVC, ulf VCC, geck CVC, chom CVC , tord CVC, thazz CVC), blan… Continue reading The screening check, Sounds-Write style
In this, my final look at David Reedy’s contribution to the debate about whether the phonics screening check should be continued, I want to look at more of the claims he has made. Reedy complains that when administering the check the class teacher ‘may […] be out of the class for three days or more’.… Continue reading UKLA baloney
The latest issue of Teach Primary carries a debate entitled ‘Is it time to ditch the phonics screening test?’ In actual fact, its correct title should be ‘Is it time to ditch the phonics screening check’ but we’ll come back to this point. In any event, it pitches Debbie Hepplewhite against David Reedy. As most… Continue reading David, is ‘reedy’ a pseudo word?
We’re coming up to the second phonics screening check in June and already I hear sounds (no pun intended) of anxiety whispered in school corridors and teaching rooms. Of course, if teachers have been doing what they should have been trained to do, there wouldn’t be a problem and everyone would relax. The screening check is… Continue reading Phonics screaming check!
