The Phonics Screening Check: What to Expect and How to Help
A Year 1 letter comes home mentioning a "phonics screening check" and a parent's first instinct is to worry. Here is what it actually involves, and why the made-up words are on purpose, not a trick.
This page describes the official England check. For current, authoritative detail, see the GOV.UK phonics screening check collection.
What the check actually tests
The phonics screening check is a short, one-on-one activity a child's own teacher carries out, not a written exam sat in a hall. It has been statutory for Year 1 pupils in state-funded schools in England since 2012.
A child reads 40 words aloud, split into two sections of 20, with a mix of real words and pseudo-words, sometimes called "alien words," spread through both. The teacher listens for whether the child can sound out and blend each word, not whether they already recognize it.
Children in Year 1 who do not meet the expected standard get more phonics teaching and normally retake the check in Year 2. It is designed as a low-stakes checkpoint for the school, not a graded exam result that follows a child anywhere.
Pseudo-words in the check are conventionally shown alongside a small picture, often a friendly cartoon creature, to signal clearly to the child that the word is made up and will not be found in a dictionary. That visual cue is deliberate: it keeps a child from second-guessing whether they misread a real word, and lets them focus purely on sounding it out.
About the "expected standard"
Each year's threshold mark, the score needed to meet the expected standard out of 40, is set and published on GOV.UK after that year's check has been marked, since the exact words differ year to year and the check's difficulty can shift slightly as a result. It has historically landed in the low-to-mid thirties out of 40 in past years, but treat that as rough context rather than a fixed number, and check the current year's published threshold directly on GOV.UK rather than relying on a number quoted here.
Why nonsense words are in there on purpose
A real word
Could theoretically be recognized from memory, if a child has simply seen it enough times, whether or not they can actually decode its letters.
A pseudo-word
Cannot be recognized from memory, because it does not exist anywhere else. The only way to read one correctly is to genuinely sound out the letters.
That is the entire point of including them: pseudo-words isolate decoding ability from memorization, which is exactly the skill systematic phonics teaching is meant to build. A child stumbling on a made-up word is not a sign anything has gone wrong, it is the check doing precisely what it was designed to do.
What happens after the results come home
Schools report each child's result to parents, usually in the end-of-year report, stating whether the expected standard was met. Schools also report aggregated results up through the usual national data channels, which is how researchers and policymakers track outcomes at a national level, separate from any individual child's record.
A result below the threshold is common and expected for a meaningful share of Year 1 children in any given year, which is precisely why the retake exists in Year 2 rather than treating the first attempt as final. Most children who retake do meet the standard the second time, after another year of ordinary classroom phonics teaching.
None of this is a verdict on a child's broader intelligence or long-term reading ability. A single check on a single day measures where decoding happens to stand at that moment, and phonics teaching keeps going in the classroom regardless of the result, whether a child met the standard comfortably or is still building toward it.
How parents can help, without turning it into a test
- Keep ordinary reading time going. Regular practice at home, read together or independently, does more than any specific check-format drilling.
- Sound out unfamiliar words playfully. When a made-up or unusual word comes up in a game or a book, treat it as a fun puzzle to sound out rather than a gotcha.
- Don't over-explain the check itself. For most Year 1 children, the check feels like an ordinary reading activity with their teacher unless an adult frames it as something to be nervous about.
Word Safari's phonics content, built from 73 letter sounds across 7 tiers, gives a child regular decoding practice through ordinary play, which is the same underlying skill the check measures. It is not built as a check-format drilling tool, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department for Education or the Standards and Testing Agency.
If your family is genuinely worried, the single most useful thing you can do is ask your child's teacher how they are getting on in ordinary classroom phonics sessions well before the check date, since a teacher who sees a child decode daily has a much better read on likely performance than any single practice sheet at home. The check itself, on the day, is designed to be a brief, unremarkable part of an ordinary school week.
Give decoding practice a home outside the classroom
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Questions parents ask
Is the phonics screening check compulsory?
It is statutory for Year 1 pupils in state-funded schools in England. If you are outside England, or your child attends an independent or international school, the check may not apply. Confirm directly with your child's school.
Does my child pass or fail?
The check reports whether a child met the year's expected standard, which is a threshold mark set and published on GOV.UK after marking. It is not a pass or fail in the exam sense, and a child who does not meet it simply retakes the check in Year 2, with more phonics teaching in between.
Why does the check include made-up words?
Pseudo-words cannot be recognized from memory, so a child can only get them right by genuinely decoding the letters, which is exactly the skill the check is designed to measure.
Is Word Safari designed to prepare children for this specific check?
No, and it is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Department for Education or the Standards and Testing Agency. Word Safari teaches general phonics decoding, the same underlying skill the check measures, through ordinary play rather than check-format drilling.
What happens if my child doesn't meet the standard in Year 2 either?
The great majority of children who retake in Year 2 do meet the standard. For the smaller number who still need more support afterward, the school continues targeted phonics teaching; exactly how that is structured is a school-level decision, so ask your child's teacher directly.