2. The children in year 1 will focus on the use of phonics and decoding skills to support their reading progress. Phonic sounds are taught each week and emphasis is put on learning the different ways in which one sound can be written, this helps children with both reading and writing independently. Children are taught to read by breaking down words into separate sounds or ‘phonemes’. They are then taught how to blend these sounds together to read the whole word. There are around 40 different sounds.

4. To make sure that all children have learned phonic decoding to an appropriate standard by the end of year 1.

5. The check is very similar to tasks the children already complete during phonics lessons. Children will be asked to ‘sound out’ a word and blend the sounds together e.g. d-o-g - dog The focus of the check is to see which sounds the children know and therefore the children will be asked to read 20 made up ‘nonsense’ words and 20 real words. THIS IS NOT A READING TEST

6. They are included because they will be new to all children, so there won’t be a bias to those with a good vocabulary knowledge or visual memory of words. Children who can read non-words should have the skills to decode almost any unfamiliar word.

8. The screening will take place in June.

9. The children will complete the check one at a time in a quiet area of the school. The class teacher will conduct all of the screening checks with the children. The screening will take approximately 10 minutes with each child.

10. Encourage your child to ‘sound out’ when reading or writing. Focusing particularly on spotting more unusual sound patterns. E.g. Digraph- 2 letters making one sound cow Trigraphs- 3 letters making one sound night Split digraphs- 2 vowels with a consonant in- between. Use to be known as the magic e! spine - i_e

11. Encourage your child to practise sounding out and blending nonsense words. Children can practise their phonics by playing games online. The children particularly like ‘Buried Treasure’ in which they sound out and blend real and nonsense words. http://www.phonicspla y.co.uk/BuriedTreasure 2.htmlhttp://www.phonicspla y.co.uk/BuriedTreasure 2.html

12. REMEMBER: Phonics is not the only thing needed to become a fluent reader. Please continue to read with your child each night and encourage them to: Sound out Re-read to check it makes sense. Use pictures for clues. Ask questions about the book. And most importantly ENJOY READING!