1. Phonics Screening Meeting
Wednesday 8th March 2017

2. What is Phonics?
Children begin to learn phonics (sounds) in Early Years, both in Nursery and Reception.
Once children begin learning sounds, these sounds are used to read and spell words. Children can then see the purpose of learning sounds.

3. ‘m’, ‘a’, ‘s’, ‘d’, ‘t’. What is Phonics?
For this reason, the first initial sounds that are taught are
‘m’, ‘a’, ‘s’, ‘d’, ‘t’.
These can immediately be blended for reading to make simple CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) e.g. mat, sad
Children then develop segmenting for writing skills; breaking the word into sounds to spell it out.

4. What is the Phonics Screening Check?
The phonics screening check is designed to confirm whether individual children have learnt sufficient phonic decoding and blending skills to an appropriate standard.
Children throughout the country will all be taking part in a phonics screening check during the same week in June.

5. About the test
How to make the sounds

6. What Happens During the Test?
The test contains 40 words. Each child will sit one to one and read each word aloud to a teacher. The test will take approximately 10 minutes per child, although all children are different and will complete the check at their own pace. The list of words the children read is a combination of 20 real words and 20 ‘alien’ words (nonsense words).

7. 2016 Test words

8. Alien Words
The alien words will be shown to your child with a picture of an alien. This provides the children with a context for the alien word which is independent from any existing vocabulary they may have.
Alien words are included because they will be new to all pupils; they do not favour children with a good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words.

9. Examples of words

10. Reporting to Parents
By the end of the summer term we will report your child’s results to you. We will confirm if the child has met the standard threshold. Children who do not achieve the expected level will retake the test when they are in Year 2.
Although the test is used to analyse a schools performance, it is not always a true reflection of your child’s reading ability as some children are sight readers.

11. How can I help my child at home?
Use flash cards to reinforce the sounds taught at school.
Use the reading record to revise sounds.
Provide a mixture of real and alien words for your child to sound out.
Read with your child every day.

12. Check their progress
Working through reading books with them will have given you a good idea, but check on single words. The test will include:
CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words – e.g. bin
CCVC (consonant consonant vowel consonant) words – e.g. thin
CVVC (consonant vowel vowel consonant) words – e.g. boat
split digraphs – e.g. made or like
tricky words – e.g. friend
longer words – e.g. words with ‘ing’ or ‘est’ endings.
Write down some words and simply ask them to read them out to you. You may notice a pattern of where they’re getting stuck.

13. /ee/ /oo/ /oa/ /ir/ /ou/ /ar/ /ph/ /th/
Play ‘Sound of the Day’
Each day pick a different sound and write it on a Post-it note. Ask your child to stick the note onto an item which contains that sound. Choose from
/ee/ /oo/ /oa/  /ir/ /ou/  /ar/ /ph/ /th/

14. Tackle tricky words English is a complicated language and it’s vital that you discuss this with your child so that they know it’s hard for everyone – not just them! Look at some tricky words together and point out the part that makes them particularly difficult. For example, ‘school’ is tricky because it’s spelt /s/ ch/ /oo/ /l/, but we say the /ch/ as /c/.

15. Compose silly sentences
Write sentences with some nonsense (but phonetically plausible) words in them. Make them as amusing as possible and ask your child to read what you’ve written. They might then like to draw a picture to go with the words.

16. Adapt I spy All kids love playing I spy, so just extend the game a little by asking them to spy things that begin with a particular sound (/ch/ or /sh/, for example) or pick words with a certain sound in the middle or end.

17. Use the sound button technique
It can be very daunting to see a word that you’re unfamiliar with, but by the time your child is at the end of Year 1 they’ll have lots of phonics decoding strategies, it’s just practice that’s needed so that they’ll feel confident to use them.
When your child comes across a new word in their reading, encourage them to look for ‘special friends’ within words before they begin to sound out a word.
Write it down and together mark ‘sound buttons’ under each sound, for example:

18. Use story books
Of course, reading is really all about stories and enjoying them! It’s vital not to lose sight of this when your child is using phonics to learn to read, so keep going with the bedtime stories.
When you’re reading aloud to your child, ask them to read one sentence per page. This will ensure they’re coming into contact with words they probably won’t have read before and they’ll have to use their phonics decoding skills; they’ll be motivated to do so as they’ll be enjoying the story.

19. Homework