Fabulous Phonics!
First of all, let’s talk about what phonics actually is! It is how our children learn to read and write in school. But it’s so different to how WE learnt in school, it can feel a little confusing.
Phonics teaches children the grapheme to phoneme correspondence.
Grapheme is just a fancy way of saying “letter name” like A B C, and phoneme is “the letter sound”, being the sound a letter makes, like – sssss.
Once children have learnt the “letter sounds”, they read them in isolation like mmmm – a – t, to then blend the sounds together to read the word: mmmm – a – t, mat!
As the children progress, they learn more and more “letter sounds”, including digraphs (which is two letters that go together to make a sounds, like “sh”) and trigraphs (which are three letters that go together to make a sound, like “igh”). They can then read words containing more complex letter sounds like: n – igh – t, night!
So what is the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check?
Year 1 children across the country take part in a statutory word-reading check in the summer term of Year 1. Children will work with a familiar adult in their school to read 40 words, which takes around 5 minutes. The pass mark is around 32 (the exact pass mark is released at the end of the year).
Half of the words are real words, and half of the words are “nonsense” words, commonly referred to by the children as “alien words” (clue: there’s a picture of an alien next to these words on the paper). Reading alien words ensures that children are able to read any new or unfamiliar words they are faced with, including more complex words… like anticipation or comprehension!
You can see what the past papers look like here. Children read each word on the paper, and the adult will record the score on the answer sheet. The scores are submitted to the government and parents will find out the score by the end of Year 1.
Okay, so why is it so important?
Research reported by a leading phonics programme, ReadWriteInc, revealed that “90% of children who passed the phonics check in Year 1 reached or exceeded the expected standard in reading in Year 6”.
If your child doesn’t pass the check at the end of year one, please don’t worry! We are here to help… children who do not pass will get the opportunity to repeat the check in Year 2 and with extra tuition and practice at home, they have a good chance at passing the check in Year 2. This means that all children will be able to read accurately before they begin Year 3.
How can we help at Little Owl Tuition?
At Little Owl Tuition, we support every child to learn to read accurately, by teaching them the skills they need to read. We teach them phonetic sounds and the specific skills they need to become confident and successful little readers.
Check out these short but informative videos to learn more about how our children learn to read:
