Preparing for the Phonics Screening Check

As a KS1 teacher I remember this time of year well, Easter seems like a distant memory and before you know it the summer holidays will be here…… but before that we need to get ready and prepare for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check (PSC)! 

As a national test it ensures a certain standard of word reading. It is not a test of reading fluency or an indicator that children are ready to move away from systematic phonics teaching. The year 1 PSC is a test that checks that children can read words with specific GPC’s and is carried out in June, one to one, with each child. 

So, what can we do to prepare the children, so that they are ready, and any gaps have been identified and filled? 

Effective Formative Assessment  

Formative assessment is at the heart of the Monster Phonics programme. By quickly identifying children that are struggling or who have misunderstood, and then taking immediate action, can make all the difference in supporting children to achieve and progress with early reading and writing.  

It is so important to assess and respond quickly, through ‘on the spot’ assessments made during the phonics lesson itself and make those crucial adaptations to your teaching during the lesson. 

Early identification of children at risk of falling behind, together with an effective intervention programme is paramount to ensure that every child learns to read and write and is ready for the PSC. Using formative assessment effectively will help children to keep pace with the teaching and the phonics programme and allow them to reach yearly expectations needed at the end of Year 1.  

For those children who do not fully meet those learning objections for the lesson they should receive a same day intervention session. The intervention can take the form of 1:1 or in a small group. Sometimes you could even do this as a whole class if you felt the children were not fully secure with the knowledge or skill taught in the morning session. 

Revision Lessons 

Revision is very much built into the Monster Phonics programme. The programme has purposefully included revision lessons to enable reinforcement and consolidation of phonics knowledge and skills to secure learning prior to the PSC. 

From term 2, week 9 the year 1 lessons are revision/review lessons which means the children can review and practise learning. Each revision lesson goes over grapheme/phonemes they have previously learnt, enabling children to secure GPCs and their application to blending to read. Each lesson follows the same format: 

• Quick Mix Review – spelling practice using the previous week’s grapheme. 

• Teaching PPT and hook to recap GPC and blending practice.  

• Reading activity – such as sorting real and alien words, fluency reading, grammar machines and then an extended writing activity based on the week’s revision. 

Our Top 5 tips 

1. At the beginning of the summer term it is important to do a practice paper or use our Phonics screening tool (which is based on the PSC) as a baseline PSC assessment. You can then use this information to highlight any specific gaps and identify any children who continue to or who will need extra support.

Our PSC screening tool uses past papers and can be found in the assessment area of the website, click on assessment, year 1 and then the online phonics screening tool at the bottom left. You have a few past papers to choose from so can practice several times prior to the actual check. 

2. Close the gaps– Fill GPC gaps using group or individual GPC Rapid intervention

Use ‘Blending to Read’ Intervention 2 for practise with Reception digraphs and trigraphs. 

Use ‘Blending to Read’ Intervention 3 for practise of blending with adjacent consonants. 

Use ‘Blending to Read’ intervention 4 & 5 for practise identifying alternative pronunciation of digraphs. 

3. Read alien words– When you are reading alien words always ensure the children sound them out and don’t attempt to read them as full words. Remind them that when there is a picture of an alien, they are never real words but the names of the aliens. You can also encourage the children to add sound buttons if needed to support blending.
4. Slow Down– Get the children to slow down when reading words! We have been aiming for fluency all year; now we are aiming for accuracy. Getting them to identify any digraph or trigraphs in words and just getting them to slow down for the check. We want them to be tortoises. Slow and steady wins the race. We want them to be accurate rather than quick.
5. Practice makes perfect– As part of the repeated practice there are several common issues that you could address: –

Plurals

Children can often struggle to read plural words. Model reading the words with the s covered. Uncover the s and then read the word again. Practise this until the children are confident reading plural words. 

Split Digraphs

Split digraphs are something that we know children do find difficult to recognise in words particularly if it’s a plural word. Practise identifying words with split digraphs in black text without sound buttons.  

Digraphs vs adjacent consonants

Or really any words the children might mix up, for example reading storm as strom. This can happen when children are going from reading alien to real words, getting muddled up with adjacent consonants and mistaking them for vowel diagraphs. We need to make sure children are really accurate with how they sound out and blend. Making sure the children are clear and checking to see if there is a picture of an alien and if there isn’t knowing that the word has to make sense. ‘has it got a picture of an alien? Is this an alien word or a real word?  

Finally, longer words

Get the children to practise breaking up the word and reading each syllable and then putting the word together.  This method really supports children with reading the longer words. Make sure they get a chance to physically do this with words, covering the second syllable up with their hands as read the first syllable. 

To watch the PSC training video in full , if you are an MP school please visit https://monsterphonics.com/resources-training/training-content/enhanced-training/teachers/the-phonics-screening-check/