The phonics screening check is a statutory reading check that all year 1 children (aged 5 to 6) are expected to take during a particular week in June. This check is designed to see whether your child has reached the expected level in their decoding, segmenting and blending skills. Put more simply, it checks whether your child is able to break down a word into sounds so they are able to read unfamiliar words.

Some of these words are real words and some are ‘non-words’ or ‘nonsense words’.  Children will be prepared for the fact that some of the words will not be real words and these words are identifiable during the test by having a small image of an alien next to them.