Is your child in Year 1? If they are, they are probably going to be participating in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check in June. But what is it? How can you support your child? Here are five things you need to know and five ways you can help your child.

Before we get into it, we are going to be using some phonics jargon in this post, so we’ve included a phonics jargon buster at the bottom of the post and a FREE downloadable version is also available for you to download. You don’t need to become an expert in phonics, but the explanations might make some things clearer.

Five Things You Need to Know About the Phonics Screening Check

1. The phonics screening check takes place in June every year.

It is a mandated check in mainstream English primary schools. It takes place in June every year. All eligible Year 1 pupils will take part and some Year 2 pupils will take part if they did not pass it in Year 1.

Some schools in Scotland, Ireland, Northern Ireland and Australia choose to take the check.

There is one week in June that teachers must complete the check, but it can be completed the week after (variation week) if your child has been absent during the phonics screening check week.

2. It is to help teachers assess phonics.

‘The purpose of the phonics screening check will be to confirm that all children have learned phonic decoding to an age-appropriate standard. Children who have not reached this level should receive extra support from their school to ensure they can improve their decoding skills, and will then have the opportunity to retake the phonics screening check.’ (Standards & Testing Agency, 2017)

The purpose of the phonics screening check is to help assess if children’s phonics is at an age-appropriate level and to help educators identify which children need more support. It should not be treated as a test and it is important that there is no pressure placed on children.

An image of the front cover of the 2025 phonics screening check. The image had 9 alien characters on it.

Above is an image of what the phonics screening check booklet looks like.

3. It is an assessment of 40 words, including 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words.

The phonics screening check consists of 40 words; 20 of the words are real words and 20 of the words are pseudo-words. Pseudo-words have an image of an alien-like character next to them, so children know that they are not real words. However, if your child is distracted by these, there are options for teachers to print them in black and white, as well as a range of other accessibility options.

Example of section 1 and section 2 of the phonics screening check.
Section one psuedo-words include 'blem', 'drell', 'fusp', 'quisk'. Real words include 'shop', 'yell', 'peel' and 'check'. Section 2 pseudo-words include 'brend', 'throst', 'stret' and 'spraw'. Real words include 'label', 'vanish', 'blossom' and 'thankful'.

The check is split into two sections: section1 and section 2. Both sections will have a mix of real words and psuedo-words. The check gets progressively more complex. The last page of the check (as shown below) is the most challenging. This page consists of a five-, six-, seven- and eight-letter word, which all contain two syllables. Below shows the last page of the 2025 phonics screening check.

An image of the back page of the 2025 phonics screening check. The words read 'delay', 'statue', 'counter' and 'grateful'.

There is no time limit on the check, although most children take approximately five to ten minutes. The check will be administered by a trained educator that the child knows well and they are allowed to have breaks during the check.

4. The pass mark is variable.

The pass mark is released after the check (usually the week after variation week). It is variable, but it has consistently been 32 since the check began.

5. Pseudo-words are included.

Lots of people question why pseudo-words would be included in the check. They are included as they are the purest form of assessing the children’s phonics knowledge and phonics skills. As they are not real words, children cannot have memorised them. This is also the reason that the real words that are used are words that are less common, so children are less likely to sight-read them.

Pseudo-words are used in life. For example, the word ‘Google’ is originally a pseudo-word. You may also see pseudo-words in books or sometimes you need to use your phonological knowledge to read unfamiliar words, such as place names.

Regional accents are accounted for in the phonics screening check for real words and pseudo-words.

Five Ways You Can Help Your Child

1. Read, read and read more!

The best way you can support your child is to read with them. Listen to them read the decodable books that they are sent home with. These are designed to help your child practise blending and only include GPCs that your child has learned in their phonics lessons.

An image showing Phonics Shed's decodable books. The first image is the book 'Albie Gets the Brownies', the second book is 'Kurt Surfs' and the final image is of the decodable eBook library.

Reading stories that aren’t from your child’s phonics scheme will also help children. You may want to read with them and choose the words for your child to read. For example, if your child’s teacher has told you that they are struggling with the ‘oo’ grapheme, then you might select words with that grapheme in, such as ‘room’ in the book below.

An image of a Claude book by Alex T. Smith. The word 'room' has a red circle around it.

The front cover of three books; The Rainbow Fish, Giraffes Can't Dance and The Gruffalo.

These books also tend to have more interesting storylines than decodable books because decodable books can only include the GPCs that your child has learned in their lessons.

An image of a cereal box, a road sign, magazines, a recipe book, a phone and a newspaper.

It doesn’t just have to be books. Reading is all around us. You can get your child to read signs, newspapers, recipes, cookbooks, magazines, cereal boxes, shopping lists and texts on your phone. These are all reading and are all beneficial.

2. Let your child become the teacher.

A sound mat from Phonics Shed shows GPCs alongside the relevant Phonics Shed character.

Your child’s teacher may send home some phonics resources, such as the sound mat pictured above. One way of using these is for your child to teach you the different sounds and they might even tell you about the characters or stories. They usually love doing this!

3. Ask your child’s teacher what sounds they need to practise.

Your child’s teacher will know what sounds your child needs to practise. They may give you a sheet with the sounds that your child knows and the ones that they are struggling with. Often, words with split digraphs can be the more difficult words to spot.

An image of a result of a Phonics Shed assessment. The assessment shows the digraph a_e e.g. Jade the Spade with a green tick, e_e e.g. Pete the millipede with a red cross, i_e e.g. Mike the kite with a green tick, o_e w.g. Hope the cone with a green tick, u_e e.g. Luke the flute with a red cross and u_e e.g. Duke the mule with a red cross.

A split digraph is when two vowels form one phoneme but are split by a consonant. Examples include the ‘o_e’ split digraph as in ‘rope’, the ‘u_e’ split digraph as in ‘rude’ and the ‘i_e’ split digraph as in ‘bike’. The second vowel (and last letter of the word) is always an ‘e‘ in split digraphs.

If your child’s school uses Phonics Shed, our Phonics Shed YouTube channel is full of songs for each GPC. We also have pronunciation guidance videos that you may find useful.

4. Use online phonics games.

An image of four of Phonics Shed's games.

Online phonics games and apps can be good for practice. Phonics Shed includes online digital games for every GPC. These include games that focus on sound work, sounding out, sound matching, segmenting and blending. There are three different levels, so children can choose to play on ‘easy’, ‘medium’ or ‘hard’. If your child’s school uses Phonics Shed, they will have their own personal login.

5. Use EdShed’s FREE Letter Tiles Tool.

An image of EdShed's Letter Tile Tool. The tiles read 'boil', 'soil' and 'coin'. The tiles show that 'oi' is a digraph. There are sound buttons under 'coin'.

EdShed’s Letter Tiles tool is completely FREE for non-subscribers and EdShed subscribers. This tool allows you to create words using the letter tiles and you can add the sound buttons to words by clicking on the button that says ‘abc’. It also has a dictionary feature which says the sounds and the words.

Now, what not to do…

Don’t use past phonics screening checks at home.

There are a few reasons that we do not recommend using past phonics screening checks at home (unless your child’s teacher has asked you to). The first reason is that it can put pressure on the child and can make the check feel bigger or more important than it is. The second reason is that schools often use past papers to assess children prior to the phonics screening check. If they have already completed this at home, it will not reflect a true result and the child may not get the support they need. We also don’t recommend practising lots of pseudo-words at home, as these are difficult to create and it is difficult to get the right balance of pseudo-words to real words.

Video Webinar Recording: Statutory Assessment Series: Predictions and Preparation for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check

Watch this free webinar recording for all of the above.

Phonics Jargon Buster

Phoneme

Definition: The smallest unit of sound in a word. It focuses on the sound, not how it is written. These are usually written with slashes on either side so we know we’re referring to a sound.

Example: The word ‘chip’ has three phonemes or sounds /ch//i//p/. The word ‘batch’ also has three phonemes /b//a//ch/. The /ch/ phoneme is represented by different letters in each word (‘ch’ and ‘tch’).

Grapheme

Definition: The letter or combination of letters that represents a single phoneme.

Example: The /ch/ phoneme or sound can be represented by the grapheme ‘ch’ or ‘tch’. The actual letter or letters used are the grapheme.

Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence (shortened to GPC)

Definition: The link between a grapheme (the letter or letters) and the phoneme (the sound) that it represents.

Example: The grapheme ‘c’ represents the /k/ sound but can also represent the /s/ phoneme or sound, e.g., in the word ‘princess’ we have ‘c’/s/ but in ‘cat’ it is ‘c’/k/.

Blending

Definition: When individual phonemes, or sometimes syllables, within words are pulled together to aid reading.

Example: The phonemes are /k/ /a/ /t/. When we blend them together, they make ‘cat’.

Phonics Shed uses the method ‘Sound It, Squash It, Say It’ to reinforce this.

Segmenting

Definition: The opposite of blending; when words are broken down into individual phonemes, or sometimes syllables, to aid writing.

Example: The word ‘cat’, we try to listen to the phonemes or sounds in the word and can identify /k/ /a/ /t/.

Phonics Shed uses the method ‘Say It, Stretch It, Sound It’ to reinforce this.

Pseudo-Word

Definition: These are words that have no meaning (they are not real words). However, they do have the same structure as a word in English. These are often referred to as non-words, nonsense words or alien words and are shown with a character of an alien next to them.

Example: ‘strume’

Warning: We do not recommend trying to create your own pseudo words.

Download your FREE ‘Phonics Screening Check Jargon Buster for Parents and Carers’ PDF below.

Phonics Screening Check Jargon Buster Download