About 150 primary school teachers sat in a lecture theatre at the University of Sydney on Saturday morning, struggling to read three words: plood, pove and moul.

Some thought plood should rhyme with blood, while others said it should rhyme with food.

Does plood rhyme with flood or food?

The bigger question, though, was how year 1 students could pass a new literacy test that will require them to read "nonsense words" like the three given to the teachers.

The new test, which has been proposed by Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham and could be in schools by next year, will focus on phonics, a branch of literacy teaching that involves decoding words by sounding out letters.