A number of made-up words such as “koob” or “zort” are to be included in the government’s planned new reading test for six-year-olds in England.
The idea has drawn criticism from literary experts who say the approach will confuse those beginning to read.
The UK Literacy Association said the plan was “bonkers” as the purpose of reading was to understand meaning.
I could understand the concept if fake words were being thrown in for tests on fluency, but 6 year olds? That does seem a little bit much.
Obviously it’s a test that distinguishes between phonetic fluency and memorization of sight words. Around here you can send your pre-schooler or kindergartener to a “Kuman Learning Center” and they can come out knowing hundreds of sight words such that they can read through almost all the beginner books easily, but they won’t learn phonics and hence cannot read “zort” or whatever it is. I taught my kids to read phonetically before they entered school and they picked up the non-phonetic words as they went along. They couldn’t outread the Kumoners in kindergarten but by 1st grade they were already way ahead. And they’re still ahead because a leg up in reading persists pretty much for life.
In post modern understanding the meaning of a word is supplied by the reader not the author. Indeed that’s how revisionists operate, whether the document is the Bible or US Constitution. So, in that context, this sounds reasonable.
Right — but this has nothing to do with post modern understandings of the meaning of words. Just the ability to recognize a phonetic pattern when you see it regardless of the fact that you’ve never encountered the word before. Dr. Seuss books have hundreds of such words.
Zort and Koob are surnames. It is distressing that the test for these young children fails to capitalize proper nouns. Shocking! How will the children learn proper English if their teachers make such obvious blunders on their spelling tests? /sarc
Move along. Nothing to see here.
And “bonkers” is….. When nonsense is sense, what then is sense?
From his Grinkle in middle Bloost Yrral