Reading Test Will Brand Five-Year-Olds 'Failures'

A new reading test risks branding children failures at the age of five, teachers have warned.

The test, to be taken by all pupils aged five and six at the end of their first year of compulsory schooling, focuses on the sounds of letters, rather than words.

They will be asked to read 20 words and the same number of made-up words.

Ministers believe it will help identify strugglers and boost reading standards by measuring whether pupils have a good understanding of phonics.


The fact is there will be a point when children are deemed to have failed it, and we think that's a very poor start in education.
Christine Blower, NUT general secretary

But teachers say it will have the opposite effect and will demoralise and confuse bright children who might misread the jumbled group of letters, for example by mistaking "osk" for "ask".

Two-thirds of staff think the test is unnecessary and a waste of money, according to a survey by the National Union of Teachers (NUT).

The union, which is already on a collision course with the Government over public sector reforms, is threatening to “prepare a campaign, including a boycott" against the move.

The NUT is debating a resolution at its annual conference in Torquay later, raising the prospect of a boycott if results from the test are used in league tables in the future.

General secretary Christine Blower said: "The fact is there will be a point when children are deemed to have failed it, and we think that's a very poor start in education.

"There's also a very odd perverse incentive in that perhaps what we'll see is teachers drilling kids in non-words - because if you know that you're a better, or more advanced, or more able reader you might try and make a word out of a word that's a non-word."

Hazel Danson, a phonics teacher and chairman of the NUT's education committee, said reading is "so much more than just decoding a text. They might as well be decoding a page of French."

"What we have been advocating is very much reading for pleasure, with, along the side, the skills you need to read."

A Department for Education spokesman said: "We have been clear that the results for the reading check will not be published in league tables. Schools will be required to tell parents their own child's results.

"Standards of reading need to rise. At the moment around one in six children leaves primary school unable to read to the level we expect, and one in 10 boys leaves able to read no better than a seven-year-old. These children go on to struggle at secondary school and beyond.

"The new check is based on synthetic phonics, a method internationally proven to get results. The evidence from the pilot carried out last year is clear - thousands of six-year-olds, who would otherwise slip through the net, will get the extra reading help they need to become good readers, to flourish at secondary school, and to enjoy a lifetime's love of reading."

The reading test is the latest in a series of proposals that have pitted teachers against the Government.
(from sky)

Typical NUT attitude............. it's never the teacher's fault. It's the child that's failed !

POPPYCOCK !