Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check will begin on the week commencing Monday 12th June 2023. It is designed to show how well children can use the phonics skills they have learned, but perhaps more importantly it identifies those who need extra help.

It is certainly nothing for parents to worry about. It is a very friendly, short test, lasting only a few minutes and is done individually by each child with a teacher – no writing involved. Your child will be asked to read 40 words carefully chosen to follow phonic rules. Some of these words will be made up words that have no meaning, but your child will need to say them correctly to show that they understand the phonic rules.

Each of the made up words has a fun, monster cartoon character next to them, implying that the words are the names of the monsters. This is so that children don’t think there have been spelling mistakes and try to correct them by saying a different word closely related to the made up word. There are usually about 12 of these made up words.

The rest of the words are real words and the target, or threshold, has been to get 32 of the words correct. If your child scores less than this then they should receive extra help as a matter of course.

Previous tests, together with practice sheets, answer sheets and scoring guidance are freely available on the site. Please note that the practice sheet has been the same for each year.

We have a terrific range of phonics worksheets, especially in our Letters and Sounds category which will really help children get to grips with phonics.

Go to Letters and Sounds

Go to Phonics Screening Test Materials