Phonics- Practise at home

In June, all Year 1 pupils will undergo a national phonics screening check. They will be required to read 40 words. Some of the words will be real words and some of them will be nonsense words. All the words are phonetically decodable, meaning the children will be able to segment and blend them together using their phonics. 

Nonsense words are words are not actual words with an associated meaning e.g. flib, snorch. Pseudo words are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using phonics skills and not their memory. 

It is important that children practise reading real and nonsense words in isolation. The pseudo (nonsense) words will be shown to your child with a picture of a monster, and they will be asked to tell their teacher what the monster’s name is by reading the word. This not only makes the check a bit more fun but provides the children with a context for the nonsense word which is independent from any existing vocabulary they may have. Crucially, it does not provide any clues, so your child just must be able to decode it. Children generally find nonsense amusing so they will probably enjoy reading these words. 

Below are practise sheets for you to complete with your child. Please make it fun. The children can even invent their own monster names.