1. Phonics
Screening Check

2. Phonics Overview
Children have daily phonics lessons delivered through our Read Write Inc (RWI) sessions.
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;
There are around 40 different sounds.

4. What is the phonics screening check?
Every Year 1 child in the country will be taking a statutory phonics screening check in the same week.
Week beginning 15th June 2015
All schools must comply with the check in order for the Government to gain an overall understanding of how successful phonics is in teaching a child to read.
The focus of the check is to provide evidence of children’s decoding and blending skills, not to test their vocabulary or comprehension skills.

5. What will the children do?
Each check will take around 10 minutes to complete; alongside their class teacher.
They will be asked to ‘sound out’ a word and blend the sounds together. e.g. d-o-g – dog
The check will consist of 40 words and non-words;
Children will be told if the word is a real or ‘alien’ word, with a corresponding alien image.

6. Examples of words
chain
chone
dawn
gare
nurse
vaym
control
espox

7. How will it be administered?
Teachers will conduct all of the screening checks with the children;
The children will complete the check one to one in a quiet area of the school;
We are not permitted to indicate to the children at the time whether they have correctly sounded out and / or blended the word.

9. And the results...?
Each child will be scored against a national standard (threshold yet to be determined by DfE).
We will inform you of whether they fall below or within this standard.
If your child’s score falls below the national standard they will re-take the phonics screening check in year 2.

10. When will it happen?
The screening check will take place throughout the week beginning
Monday 15th June.
It has been designed so that children of all abilities will be able to take part.

11. rout rout The Technique
First, children find their “sound friend”, which in this case is ‘ou’.
Then, children say the phonemes that make up that word. These may be individual letters or digraphs (2 letters one sound)/trigraphs (3 letters one sound).
‘r’ ‘ou’ ‘t’.
Finally, they blend these altogether to read the nonsense word ‘rout’.
rout

12. phone phone The Technique
First, children look for sound friends,in this case there are 2 ‘ph’ ‘o-e’.
Then, children say the phonemes that make up that word. These may be individual letters or digraphs (2 letters one sound)/trigraphs (3 letters one sound).
‘ph’ ‘o-e’ ‘n’.
Finally, they blend these altogether to read the real word ‘phone’.

13. shep shep Misconceptions
Many children would auto-correct and read this nonsense word as the real word ‘sheep’.
This word in particular highlights the importance of children using the given technique.
shep

14. The Technique
dentist
There are some words which may not include any sound friends such as the example shown.

15. How can you help?
When supporting your child in their reading, encourage them to use the technique we have shown you to read new and unfamiliar words.
We will send home some practise words for you to try with your child. Ensure you practise these on a daily basis, sounding out the real and nonsense words on the back. Work on them little and often! (if you are unsure of pronunciation of some sounds, please look here or ask your child’s teacher).

16. Questions?