I notice that Matt Walker has written a post via the NFER blog about the Year One Phonics Screening Check survey featured on this thread, so I posted a comment on the blog to alert Matt to Dick Schutz's comments and observations:
My comment is awaiting moderation at the moment but this is what I wrote:
Hi Matt,
Dick Schutz has made some very interesting comments about the NFER surveys of the Year One PSC via the ‘International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction’ forum: http://www.iferi.org/iferi_forum/viewto ... ?f=2&t=416
My field is phonics and literacy so I get to visit schools to observe their phonics provision and to provide professional development. I see patterns of practice which are identifiable but not that efficient or effective for many of the children.
Whereas the NFER survey is about asking teachers questions about their practice and their views, I think it would have been invaluable to explore practice deeper by observing phonics teaching in action.
I think it is important that schools aim for virtually 100% of their Year One pupils reaching or exceeding the benchmark of the PSC and clearly we are not there yet – but 600+ schools were in 2014. I look forward to learning of the national results for 2015.
Based on my observations and experience, I created this graphic to illustrate the wide variations of phonics provision even in England where Systematic Synthetic Phonics is now statutory:
Susan Godsland, via her outstanding www.dyslexics.org.uk site, provides a summary of very interesting and pertinent information about England's Year One Phonics Screening Check which IFERI advocates would be an excellent assessment tool for international use at this point in time:
This is an excellent post by Dorothy Bishop who discusses various issues around the statutory Year One Phonics Screening Check - some interesting readers' comments too:
Hope I'm not out of place to add a couple of thoughts to this thread?
I'm about to start SP tutoring the parent of a struggling reader because she cannot support her child - her own reading is very shaky. So teachers are sometimes the only reference point for becoming a reader for some children and therefore their knowledge and training remains key to improving the quality of the teaching in schools. With functional illiteracy affecting c.5 million adults in the UK, a certain proportion of those will be parents and this will perhaps impact upon their children's reading ability.
With regard to research, I think there is also useful data to be found in SEN rates. So many children are being assessed as dyslexic or having other learning difficulties; what's the story in the schools with near 100% scores on the Phonics Screening Check? Are their SEN rates dropping (as is the case at St George's Primary in Battersea, London)?
Would be useful for schools to know this I think.
Lucy
Well - this is anecdotal - but I visit schools in England regularly and in school after school teachers report that standards in reading and writing have improved dramatically since the implementation of rigorous systematic synthetic phonics.
Only today two Year Three teachers were describing what they have noticed in improvements in reading and spelling standards over the last couple of years.
They say now all the children entering Key Stage 2 can read instead of half the children of previous years and during times of multi-cueing reading strategies.
They say that it doesn't mean that children don't have any 'issues' or 'challenges' of one description or another - but these no longer given as reaons for children not being able to read as in the past - nowadays there is a greater 'no excuses' culture.
In other words, regardless of difficulties, virtually every child can read well in the infants.
Also today, I asked the Year Three teachers to write about their findings to share in the public domain - as it is so common for phonics to get unwarranted bad press in the public domain.
