Phonics screening check

Week commencing 15th June

 What is phonics?
Phonics is a way of teaching your children how to read
quickly and skilfully.

The children are taught to:

• recognise the sounds that each individual letter makes

• identify the sounds that different combinations of

letters make eg. ‘sh’ ‘ai’ and ‘ee’

• blend these sounds together from left to right to make

a word eg. sh-ee-p = sheep
What is the phonics screening check?
• A statutory assessment for all children in Year 1.

• Designed to confirm whether individual children have

learnt to recognise phonic sounds and blend them together
to read unfamiliar words to an appropriate standard.

• The pass grade will not be published until after the

children have completed the screening check, however in
previous years children needed to read 32/40 words
correctly to pass.

• Children who do not achieve the appropriate standard will

receive support and will retake the check the following
year.
 What is the phonics screening check?
• The check includes a list of 40 words that children read
one-to-one with a teacher. The list is a combination of
both real and pseudo words (20 of each).

• The pseudo words (nonsense words) allow teachers to

identify whether or not children can recognise sounds and
blend them to read unfamiliar words.

• These words are shown to children alongside pictures of

imaginary creatures, allowing the teacher to explain the
pseudo word as the name of that imaginary creature. The
real words are shown alone without a picture.
 Pseudo words Real words

muzz mop
snemp finger
roopt stars
emp dentist
flute
zobe
 In school

• Children will continue with daily phonics

sessions in their groups

• Children are practicing reading and

sorting real and pseudo words
 Your phonics pack
To support your child at home you can:
• revisit Phase 3 and Phase 5 sounds using the
phonic mat provided

• support the children to read the real and

pseudo words that have been sent home and see
if they can identify which words are real and
which are pseudo words

• challenge the children to draw ‘sound buttons’

on the words
 Sound buttons
Sound buttons help children identify each sound in a word

moth stairs
queep emp
shine joap
 Useful websites
• http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/freeIndex.htm

• Education city homework – Literacy

reading games