2nd March 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The government have been criticised over the introduction of a new reading test for six year olds which includes ‘non-words’. As reported on the BBC website, words such as ‘koob’ and ‘zort’ have been included to test whether students can sound them out phonically, because the government is worried that students simply learn how to say words, rather than considering each individual letter.
David Reedy, president of the UK Literacy association described the new test as “bonkers”. He said that the inclusion of non-words would be counter-productive since most six year olds expect to make sense of what they read. He added that the test sends out the message that the correct pronunciation of a word can be found simply by using phonics, when that isn’t the case. Reedy said that although phonics is clearly important when teaching reading, using phonics to teach should not be confused with teaching reading itself.
The schools minister, Nick Gibb, countered the criticism by pointing out that a lot of research has suggested that teaching phonics can significantly improve a student’s reading ability, and that phonics is widely considered to be the most effective form of literacy teaching for students aged five to seven. Gibb said that the teaching of phonics in primary schools won’t become compulsory, but they will encourage more schools to do it.