Transcript Document
Year 1 Screening Check
Wednesday 8th May 2013
Aims
To know the context and background for the Y1
screening check
To be familiar with the structure and content of the
test
What is phonics?
• The phonics approach teaches children to decode words by sounds, rather than recognising whole
words. The emphasis in early years teaching is on synthetic phonics, in which words are broken
up into the smallest units of sound (phonemes).
• Children are taught the letters (graphemes) that represent these phonemes and also learn to blend
them into words. So, at its most basic, children are taught to read the letters in a word like c-a-t,
and then merge them to pronounce the word cat.
• A phoneme can be represented by one, two, three or four letters (such as "ough" in "dough").
• Children are systematically taught around 40 phonic sounds and the combination of letters used
to represent each sound.
• Most sounds, however, have more than one way to spell them. For example, "e" in "egg" can also
be spelt "ea" as in "head" or "ai" as in "said".
• Graphemes are grouped together and children progress from one group to the other and will be
tested at the end of year one, when they are six years old.
Context and Background
DfE
The Government recognises that ambitions for the phonics check are more
challenging than the current trajectory towards reading at the end of Year 2.
But we make no apology for being ambitious about securing high standards
in the teaching of reading. We believe that if children get the fundamental
skill of reading using phonics right early on it will give them a flying start
and allow them to move quickly to reading books for themselves and
achieving even more in the future.
Context
‘…all children have the chance to follow an enriching curriculum
by getting them reading early. That means supporting the
teaching of systematic synthetic phonics and introducing a simple
reading check at age six to guarantee that children have mastered
the basic skills of early reading and also ensure we can identify
those with learning difficulties’ (White Paper)
Feedback From Pilot
Developed by experts in consultation with Heads and
Teachers
Piloted in 300 schools & independently evaluated
Schools had to complete 4 different papers and feedback
18 different screening checks were trialled in total
From these, the standard and level descriptors were set
Two separate panels then considered the words in the check
and the pass mark
Outcomes from the two were very similar, validating the
results
Pass mark was slightly different for each check, depending
upon the content (31-34)
Feedback From Pilot
32% of children in the pilot reached the expected level
Schools did not have information in advance of the check and therefore
could not plan their teaching accordingly
Nonsense words are included as they are new to all pupils and, if phonic
skills are secure, children should be able to decide them
EAL children out-performed non EAL children!
Screening Check
Expectations
By the end of Year 1 children should be able to:
Read age appropriate texts fluently
Give the sound when shown any grapheme that has been taught
Blend phonemes in order to read words
Know most of the common grapheme-phoneme correspondences
Read phonically decodable one, two and three syllable words (screening
test just one and two syllable)
Structure: Section 1
Page 1
4 nonsense words
Page 2
4 nonsense words
Words will have a variety of
simple word structures eg. for
example CVC, VCC, CCVC
and CVCC
4 nonsense words
using single letters (a, b, c, d,
e, f, g, h, I, j, k, l, m, n, o, p,
q(u), r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z)
Page 3
Page 4
4 real words
some consonant digraphs (ch,
ck, ff, ll, ng, sh, ss, th, zz)
frequent and consistent vowel
digraphs (ar, ee, oi, oo or)
Page 5
4 real words
Structure: Section 2
Page 6
4 nonsense words
Page 7
4 nonsense words
Page 8
4 real words
Page 9
4 real words
Page 10
4 real words
words will have a variety of
more complex word structures
(for example CCVCC, CCCVC,
CCCVCC
some additional consonant
digraphs (ph, wh)
some less frequent and
consistent vowel digraphs,
including split digraphs (a-e, ai,
au, aw, ay, ea, e-e, er, ew, i-e,
ie, ir, oa, o-e, ou, ow, oy, ue, ue, ur) and trigraphs (air, igh)
Administration
- Taking place during the week beginning 17th June.
- Each child will take the screening test on their own
with their class teacher.
- The children will not be aware that they are being
tested.
After the Screening Check
Re-takes are to be done in June of Y2
Parents must be informed whether their child has
reached the standard required (passed!)
Look also at the children’s reading level, not just their
phonics test result.