The Ministry of Education has corrected errors in its Year 1 phonics assessment materials after it was discovered that several real words had been incorrectly labelled as "made-up" words, while some made-up words were identified as real.
According to a report by Stuff, the mistakes appeared in mandatory phonics assessment resources used across four school terms. In the material, blue dots were intended to identify pseudo (made-up) words, but some genuine words, including "feast" and "coats", were marked as fake, while invented words such as "keam" and "baim" were left unmarked as though they were real.
The ministry said the errors had been identified and corrected earlier this year, although the incorrect material was still being used until this week. Following further review, the mistakes were removed just before the end of Term 2.
Dr Janice Belgrave, a literacy specialist at a primary school, said one of her five-year-old students noticed the error while completing the assessment.
“She goes ‘why has it got a blue dot next to coats? That's not a monster word, (pseudo word) isn't that just like, hang your coats on the rack?’” Belgrave said, as quoted by Stuff.
Belgrave told the student she was correct before continuing with the test.
The Ministry maintained that the mistakes did not affect assessment outcomes.
“The minor errors did not affect the accuracy of any assessments already completed,” the ministry said, Stuff has quoted.
However, Belgrave argued the incorrect labels affected students' confidence and focus during testing.
“Because there's a big blue dot next to a real word, and no blue dot next to a monster word, of course it's impacting on how they're doing,” she said, as quoted by Stuff.
She added that while confident children were able to continue, others were left questioning their own answers.
With more than four decades of experience in education and a PhD in early literacy acquisition, Belgrave said the assessments are designed to identify children who require additional literacy support.
“The purpose of the test is to establish which children are going to need more support,” said Belgrave, Stuff has quoted.
“So if you've got a flawed test that is going to upset the child or confuse them, you're possibly not going to get the correct result,” she said, as quoted by Stuff.
Belgrave also questioned why the materials were only corrected at the end of the school term after many schools had already used them.
Responding to the criticism, Acting General Manager of Te Poutāhū Curriculum Centre Antony Harvey said the issue had no impact on students' results.
“The Phonics Check measures decoding ability using phonics knowledge, which is demonstrated in the same way for both pseudo words and real words,” said Harvey, Stuff has quoted.
“There is no difference in how items are scored based on word type, so this issue had no impact on students’ Phonics Check results,” as quoted by Stuff.
Belgrave said schools had not been informed about either the mistakes or the corrections.
The Ministry said schools were not notified because “the errors did not affect the accuracy, validity or outcomes of any assessments already completed by students,” Stuff has quoted.
“The Phonics Checks resource page was updated this morning (2 July) to note that materials for Terms 2, 3 and 4 have been corrected and to confirm that assessment results remain unchanged,” as quoted by Stuff.
Belgrave said the incident reflected the pressures created by the pace of education reforms.
“There’s too many changes too fast... it’s stressing teachers out, and the teachers are burning out,” as quoted by Stuff.