Phonics Screening

Phonics Screening Check

Year 1

A guide for parents

What is Phonics?

Phonics is a way of teaching children to read unfamiliar words quickly and skilfully. Children are first taught how to recognise the sounds each individual letter makes, identify the sounds that different contributions of letters make such as ‘sh’ and ‘oo’.

In our daily Letters and Sounds lessons children are taught to read by breaking down words into separate sounds or ‘phonemes’. They are then taught how to blend these sounds together to read the whole word.

What is the phonics screening check?

The National phonics screening check is a statutory assessment that was introduced in 2012 to all Year 1 pupils and is a quick and easy check of your child’s phonics knowledge. It comprises of a list of 40 real and nonsense words. It will assess phonics skills and knowledge learnt through Reception and Year 1. Your child will read one-one with a year 1 teacher. They will be asked to ‘sound out’ a word and blend the sounds together. The check is very similar to tasks the children already complete during phonics lessons and children will be encouraged to add ‘sound buttons’ onto words to acknowledge each part that they can hear.

What are Nonsense or Pseudo words and why are they included?

These are words that are phonetically decidable but not actual words with an associated meaning e.g. brip, snorb.

These words are included in the check specifically to assess whether you child can decode a word using phonic skills and not their memory.

How can I help my child with phonics?

We have given each child a set of cards with the phonemes required for Year 1 children. As well as reading books each evening, please use them as flashcards and practice every day by showing them to your child and testing them on the sound that the phoneme represents.

Lastly, there are many fun phonic games for children to access on the computer wwith which the children are familiar and enjoy playing.

www.phonicsplay.co.uk

http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/

We hope this information is useful. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to speak to a member of the Year 1 team.

Kind regards

Year 1 team