Year 1 Phonics Screening

Do you have a child in Year 1?

If so, your child will take part in the phonics screening check in June.

The purpose of the phonics screening check is to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age appropriate standard.

With some exceptions, all pupils who have reached the age of 6 by the end of the school year must take the check during that academic year. For most pupils, this will be in Year 1.

What is phonics?

Phonics is an effective way of teaching children to read. By ensuring high quality phonics teaching, we want to improve literacy levels and give all children a solid base to build on as they progress through school.

Through phonics, children are taught how to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes
• identify the sounds that different combinations of letters make, such as ‘sh’ or ‘oo’
• blend these sounds together from left to right to make a word

Children can then use this knowledge to ‘decode’ new words that they hear or see. This is the first important step in learning to read.

What is the phonics screening check?

The phonics screening check contains 40 words divided into 2 sections of 20 words. Both sections contain a mixture of real words and pseudo-words.

Pseudo-words are words that are phonically decodable but are not actual words with an associated meaning. They are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using their phonics skills.

All pseudo-words in the check are accompanied by a picture of an imaginary creature. Children are taught that when a word has a creature next to it, it is a pseudo-word. This ensures that they are not trying to match the pseudo-word to a word in their vocabulary.

The check is designed to give teachers information on how your child is progressing in phonics. It will help to identify whether your child needs additional support at this stage, so that they do not fall behind in this vital early reading skill.

Do I need to do anything to prepare my child for the check?

Phonics works best when children are given plenty of encouragement and learn to enjoy reading and books. Parents play a very important part in helping with this.

You can highlight the phonics sounds when you read with your child. Teaching how sounds match with letters is likely to start with individual letters such as ‘s’, ‘a’ and ‘t’ and will then move on to two-letter sounds such as ‘ee’, ‘ch’ and ‘ck’.

With all books, encourage your child to ‘sound out’ unfamiliar words and then blend the sounds together from left to right rather than looking at the pictures to guess. Once your child has read an unfamiliar word, you can talk about what it means and help them to follow the story.

Your child’s teacher will also be able to suggest books with the right level of phonics for your child. These books are often called ‘decodable readers’ because the story is written with words made up of the letters your child has learnt. Your child will be able to work out new words from their letters and sounds, rather than just guessing.

In Year 1, the children have been busy revisiting and building on their Phase 3 and Phase 5 sounds. They have also been learning to spot digraphs (two letters that make one sound), trigraphs (three letters that make one sound) and split digraphs in words. This all helps to develop their confidence when reading. To support your child at home, you can explore the helpful videos and resources on the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised website, which show how to pronounce each sound clearly. https://www.littlewandle.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ 

A little practice at home really helps. Alongside reading the weekly words sent home, you can also play lots of fun, practical games using these words—such as matching digraphs, snap, or hiding words around the house for your child to find and read. Playing with both real and “nonsense” (alien) words will help your child become more confident at decoding. The Phonics Screening Check will take place in June and will assess how many words your child can read out of 40. If you would like extra practice, you can also find previous check papers on the Department for Education website.

2024 Phonics Screening Check

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2024-materials

2023 Phonics Screening Check https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2023-materials 

2022 Phonics Screening Check https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phonics-screening-check-2022-materials 

Here are some links to games and websites that will be useful to help your child read. 

• Phonics play https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ 
• Phonics Bloom https://www.phonicsbloom.com/ 
• Time for Phonics https://timeforphonics.co.uk/   
• Top marks https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/5-7-years/letters-and-sounds 
• ICT games https://ictgames.com/mobilePage/literacy5to7.html

Will I receive feedback on my child’s results?

Your child’s teacher will share your child’s score in the End of Year Reports which are sent out on Friday 17th July.

Children who have not met the standard in Year 1 will re-take the phonics screening check in Year 2. The results of any re-take will also be shared with you.

Please click here for a Parent Information Leaflet on the Year 1 Phonics Screening