How to practise
- Choose section 1, section 2 or both, and how many words.
- Read the check cards one to one, four words at a time, like the check.
- Tick the record sheet as the child reads, and note the words to practise again.
- Use Real or alien for independent practice: children read each word and decide which it is.
What the check looks for
The check asks one thing: can a child decode a word they haven’t seen before? Real words could be read from memory, so alien words show whether children are truly sounding out and blending. That is why practice should include plenty of both, and why an alien word read as a similar real word (“starm” as “storm”) doesn’t count.
Keep going
Practise the sounds themselves with phonics worksheets, and the tricky words that can’t be sounded out with common exception words.
Curriculum links in England
- Year 1All Year 1 pupils take the statutory check in June: 40 words, read one to one with a teacher or trained adult in about five minutes.
- StructureHalf the words are pseudo-words, 12 in section 1 and 8 in section 2, each shown with a picture of an imaginary creature.
- Year 2Pupils who don’t meet the expected standard in Year 1 take the check again in Year 2.
- ReceptionThe Word Reading goal expects a sound for every letter, at least 10 digraphs and reading words by sound-blending.
The DfE reading framework advises against preparing for the check by reading lots of pseudo-words. Most practice should be decoding real words, familiar and new, so use the alien words as a short check that a child is blending rather than guessing, then go back to real words.
Past check papers don’t cover every grapheme, so your phonics programme’s own assessments track progress better. Note that section 1 can also include common vowel digraphs such as ar, ee, oi, oo and or.
Summarised in our own words from DfE and Standards and Testing Agency guidance on the phonics screening check, the DfE reading framework and the EYFS statutory framework.
