You may have heard on the news last week about the new ‘Year 1 Phonics Check’ that has been developed to support the monitoring of young students’ reading aligned with the new Simple View of Teaching Reading approach rolling out in State Schools through the new Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum. 

What is the Year 1 Phonics Check?

In Year 1 your child’s teacher can use the quick and easy Phonics Check to better understand the phonics knowledge of their students. The Check looks at how well your child can 'decode' written words. ‘Decoding’ was explained in our week 5 newsletter, in term 1, this year. The teacher will listen to how the child sounds out the letter and letter groups and how they blend these sounds together from left to right to read words.

The Phonics Check helps your child's teacher and the school to confirm whether your child is making their expected progress in reading. Teachers and schools can then use this information to inform their teaching program.

How does the Phonics Check work?

Your child will sit with their teacher and be asked to read up to 40 words aloud.

These words are a mix of real words and made-up words (sometimes called 'pseudo words', 'non-words' or 'nonsense words').

Your child may have read some of the words before, while others, like the made-up words will be completely new.

The Phonics Check normally takes around 10 minutes to complete and is carefully designed not to be stressful. There is no set time limit for it and if your child is struggling, the teacher will stop. 

After the Phonics Check

The teacher will analyse each child’s results and if your child has found the check difficult, the teacher will be able to identify what supports are needed in class to help them progress with their decoding. They will also be able to share this with you so you can specifically support them at home also (see below for ideas).

It is important to remember that all children are individuals and develop at different rates. 

Some Home Reading Tips

Practice in reading aloud is very important for literacy development. Reading with a parent or carer is a great opportunity to do this.

When your child is a beginning reader and has difficulty reading a word, the following is an effective way to help them:

1. Wait for around 5 seconds - this is important because children can often work out the word if they are given the right amount of time. They need time to put sounds together to read a whole word. If we jump in too quickly, we are stopping the decoding process and they will eventually just learn to wait to be told the word.

2. PROMPT - if your child cannot read the word, you can offer them a prompt:

e.g. ‘What’s the first sound in that word?’ This might be all they need to start sounding out the word. If they do not identify the first sound, tell them and then encourage them to sound out the rest of the word.

If they still can’t get it, model how to sound each letter out in the word with a quick pause between each letter e.g    b      a      t   then ask your child to sound each letter out and then blend it together in one word - bat

If they still have difficulty, tell them the word—and move on.

3. PRAISE - is an important part of reading and helps to keep reading a positive experience. Giving specific praise for reading behaviours is important e.g ‘you corrected that word, great job’ or ‘you sounded out each letter and blended it together clearly – wow’.

For older students 

For older students who misread a word and continue on reading without stopping to self-correct, wait until they get to the end of the sentence before stopping them. Sometimes they will realise their mistake because it doesn’t make sense—and then self-correct—but they often need to get to the end of the sentence to realise this. We want readers to be able to read for meaning, and self-correcting is an important skill for them to develop. If we immediately stop and correct them again, we undermine this process. 

If they don’t self-correct however, and read on into the next sentence, stop them and ask: ‘Did that make sense?’ If they think it made sense, then ask them to read the sentence carefully again. Sometimes reading it more carefully helps them to recognise the error.

If they misread the word again, go back to the word and ask them to have a close look at it. If they recognise their mistake, get them to read the sentence again with the correct word.

If they cannot read the word, help them to sound each letter out in the word slowly then blend the sounds together to read the whole word (this strategy can also be used if your child stalls/pauses and does not know how to read a word in the first place).

If they still have trouble, read the word for your child and move on. At the end of the text, discuss the word with your child – its meaning, pronunciation etc so they can read and understand it correctly next time.

Dee Mathiesen

Head of Curriculum