Phonics Screen Check Information
What is the Phonics Screen Check?
Each year, children in England, participate in the phonics screening check in June. The phonics screening check is a check of a child's phonics knowledge. It helps schools to confirm whether your child is making the progress expected in the national curriculum. It is a statutory requirement for schools to complete, but is part of routine assessments carried out by schools.
The phonics screening check contains 40 words divided into two 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. Pseudo-words are included in the check specifically to assess whether a child can decode a word using their phonics skills.
At Pennington Infant School, we follow the Little Wandle scheme for phonics. Children have daily sessions of around 30minutes from the beginning of Year R and into Year 2. The sessions teach new sounds, give opportunity to practise and also chance to apply as part of spelling. As part of this process, children are familiar with phonics assessments as they form part of the Little Wandle programme of half-termly assessments. This means, your child's teacher will already have assessed your child's progress and will have planned activities to support them throughout the year.
Further Information
There is lots of information available to use at home. We always recommend coming in and speaking to us, but here are some quick links also.
Read with Phonics - https://www.readwithphonics.com/parents-phonics-guide
Oxford University Press - https://global.oup.com/education/content/children/issues/phonics-for-parents/?region=uk
National Literacy Trust - https://literacytrust.org.uk/information/what-is-literacy/what-phonics/