Conduct the Year 1 Phonics Check

Conducting the Year 1 Phonics Check with students is quick and straightforward.

Select ‘Got it!’ or ‘Not yet’ according to the student’s responses. If you choose to skip a word, just press ‘Next’ to move on.

You may skip words if a student is particularly challenged by the task and you wish to stop the assessment. You must skip through to the end of the words in order to submit the results.

If possible, complete at least some of the first pseudo word section and some of the first real word section so that you can see if the student approaches both word types in the same way.

Watch the following videos to see a teacher conducting the Phonics Check with several students with different strengths and areas of need. Two teachers then discuss the results and next steps for each student.

Student 1

A teacher explains the Phonics Check to a student and runs
a practice test online. See the student view and teacher view
of the Phonics Check on the online platform.

Student 2

This video looks at techniques for giving wait time, and
encouraging hesitant or quietly spoken students.

Student 3

This student completes the test offline, using a printout of
the Phonics Check. See the hardcopy teacher marking sheet
and student sheet.

Student 4

This student completes the test online, with the teacher
marking online.

The Phonics Check journey

Set up and support

Learn how to set up and manage your account.

Prepare

Find out about getting ready to run the Phonics Check.

Conduct

View videos of teachers running the Phonics Check with students.

Analyse and respond

Find out about using the data from the Phonics Check to support student learning.