Year 1 Phonics Check: Analysing individual student reports slide outlines

1. Analysing individual student reports 

2. Starting the analysis 

You will need: 

  • access to an individual student report 
  • a printed Year 1 Phonics Check analysis sheet 
  • green and orange highlighters 

[Image: screenshot of the Phonics Check site with the Reporting button highlighted; screenshot of the Word and code complexity continuum analysis sheet; and green and orange highlighters.]  

3. Identifying student strengths 

[Image: screenshot of the Phonics Check Results page showing results limiting options ‘All’, ‘Got it!’, and ‘Not yet’, and example shows ‘Got it!’ results for words: ‘lig’, ‘mep’, ‘gax’, ‘emp’ and ‘beff’.] 

4. Phonics Check: Word and code complexity continuum 

[Image: screenshot of the Word and code complexity continuum analysis sheet; and green highlighter.  

The continuum shows a series of steps, which move from simplest phonics skills to most advanced, with relevant words from the Phonics Check sitting beneath each step. The diagram shows 10 steps of increasing word complexity. 

The first step is CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant words). The example words are  ‘lig’, ‘mep’ and ‘gax’. 

The second step is simple words with adjacent consonants (VCC, CVCC, CCVC; 3-4 phoneme words with adjacent consonant sounds blended one after the other). The example words are ‘frex’, ‘tram’, ‘self’, ‘emp’ and ‘haps’. 

The third step is consonant digraphs (two consonants representing one sound). The example words are ‘beff’, ‘shup’, ‘criff’, ‘deck’, ‘phope’, ‘queen’, ‘chin’, ‘press’ and ‘charb’. 

The fourth step is split vowel digraphs (CVCe; a vowel and an e split by a consonant representing a long vowel sound). The example words are ‘phope’, ‘stribe’, ‘wove’ and ‘stroke’. 

The fifth step is complex words with adjacent consonants (e.g. CCVCC, CCCVC, CCCVCC; 5-6 phoneme words with adjacent consonant sounds blended one after the other). The example words are ‘stroke’, ‘scram’, ‘drank’, ‘splam’, ‘stribe’, ‘glips’ and ‘floost’. 

The sixth step is vowel digraphs (two letters representing one vowel sound). The example words are ‘doil’, ‘woats’, ‘queen’, ‘floost’, ‘haunt’, ‘treats’, ‘arrow’ and ‘keeps’. 

The seventh step is trigraphs (three letters representing one sound). The example words are ‘stair’ and ‘jigh’.  

The eighth step is morphology (a word containing multiple morphemes e.g. a base word and an affix). The example words are ‘lied’, ‘treats’, ‘keeps’, ‘wishing’ and ‘brighter’. 

The ninth step is R-controlled vowels (a vowel followed by an r representing one sound). The example words are ‘charb’, ‘rird’, ‘horn’ and ‘barst’. 

The tenth step is multiple syllables (a word with two or more syllables). The example words are ’arrow’, ‘forest’, ‘brighter’ and ‘wishing’.  

The presenter demonstrates using the continuum highlighting in green words the student has read correctly in the example Phonics Check. Most correctly identified words sit in the earlier steps of the continuum. 

5. Identifying student needs 

[Image: screenshot of the Phonics Check Results page, showing results for ‘All’ options. Example shows ‘Got it!’ results for words: ‘glips’, ‘floost’ and ‘splam’; and ‘Not yet’ results for words ‘phope’ and ‘stribe’. The comment column shows that phope was read as /p/, /h/, oppy; and stribe was read as /s/, /t/, ibby.] 

6. Phonics Check Word and code complexity continuum 

[Image: word and code complexity continuum, with ‘Got it’ words highlighted in green as correct. The presenter highlights in orange the ‘Not yet’ words, many representing categories later in the continuum, such as split vowel digraphs (phope, stribe, wove, stroke), complex words (stroke, drank, stribe), vowel digraphs (doil, woats, haunt, treats, arrow), trigraphs (stair, jigh), complex morphology (lied, treats, wishing, brighter), r-controlled vowels (charb, rird, horn, barst) and multiple syllables (arrow, brighter, wishing).]  

7. Analysing student needs 

[Image: highlighted word and code complexity continuum with arrows showing words and areas where the student has missed words to identify this student’s point of need in instruction (which is split vowel digraphs, step four on the continuum).] 

8. Analysing student needs 

[Image: table showing three columns identifying Phonics Check word item, then student response, then identified difficulty for the student. There are 6 example words:  

  • tram: student response is trum, difficulty with /a/ and /u/ sounds 
  • phope: student response is /p/,/h/,/oppy/, difficulty with ph digraph and split vowel digraph 
  • charb: student response is charab, difficulty with ar 
  • stribe: student response is stibby, difficulty with split vowel digraph and blending 
  • wove: student response is wovvy, difficulty with split vowel digraph 
  • stroke: student response stroka, difficulty with split vowel digraph. 

The presenter highlights split vowel digraph examples.]