Worries that some children in Britain haven’t learned to recognise written words by the age of six have led the government to come up with a scheme to test their skills.
Except that the kids won’t be “tested” – they will be subjected to “decoding assessment.”
It seems that education officials are now very wary of the word “test.” They’ve been accused of imposing too many tests, so the kids will instead be subjected to a “decoding assessment”, this time on their understanding of “phonics.” Phonics, as an interviewer helpfully reminded his audience, is teaching that the letters D-O-G spells and sounds like Dog.
Children who pass the phonics test (sorry) may not have too much trouble with the letters T-E-S-T. But they, like us, might struggle with D-E-C-O-D.. etc.
Using the language of six-year-olds to explain what we do might be going too far – but could it be worse than the phrases dreamed up by some adults? After all, The Cat Sat on the Mat says it all, really.
Jeremy Toye, MediaTrain.