What is the Phonics Screening Check?

The Phonics Screening Check is a short, statutory reading assessment given to every Year 1 child in England. It runs once a year — for 2026, Monday 8 June to Friday 12 June. Each child reads 40 words one-to-one with their teacher; the pass mark is 32 out of 40, unchanged since 2012.

It’s been running since 2012, and your child’s school has very little discretion: every Year 1 child sits it, in the same week, with the same set of 40 words.

What’s in the check?

Forty words. Twenty in Section 1 (simpler — mostly single-syllable, Phase 2 to Phase 4 phonics). Twenty in Section 2 (harder — split digraphs, trigraphs, two-syllable real words). Roughly half are real English words. Roughly half are pseudo-words (also called “alien words”or “nonsense words”): made-up letter strings that follow English spelling rules but have no meaning. Pseudo-words are marked on the page with a small alien character so your child knows not to try to recognise them.

The check is one-to-one with a teacher. There’s no audio, no multiple choice, no time limit. The teacher shows your child each word and your child reads it aloud. The teacher marks correct or incorrect.

Why pseudo-words?

The whole point of the check is to test decoding— converting letters to sounds, sound by sound — rather than recognising whole words from memory. A child who has memorised “the”, “and”, and “house” might pass a real-word reading test without being able to read. A child who can decode “phope” or “strume” letter by letter is genuinely reading. That’s the skill that scales to every word your child will ever encounter.

When is the 2026 check?

Confirmed by the DfE: the 2026 Phonics Screening Check takes place from Monday 8 June 2026 to Friday 12 June 2026. Schools may run children through it any day that week. Children who are absent that week have until Friday 19 June 2026 to be assessed. The official threshold is typically published on Monday 22 June 2026 — see our pass-mark guide for what the threshold means and how the Year 2 resit works.

What’s the pass mark?

The DfE technically resets the pass mark each year, but it has been 32 out of 40every year since the check started in 2012. Plan for 32. It’s a useful psychological anchor for both you and your child: 80% of words correct.

What happens if my child doesn’t pass?

Children who don’t reach the threshold retake the check in Year 2, in June 2027. There’s no further retake. The school will provide additional phonics support during Year 2 either way; what changes for “non-passers” is mostly the data flag in the school’s system, not the support. Around 1 in 5 Year 1 children (about 20%) don’t reach the expected standard on the first attempt — meaning around 80% do — and the great majority of resitters then pass in Year 2.

It’s worth being calm about this. The check is a screen, not a prediction. The right reaction to a low score is targeted phonics work, not anxiety.

What you’ll be told (and what you won’t)

The school is required to tell you whether your child met the threshold and the score out of 40. They are notrequired to tell you which sounds your child got wrong. In practice, this is the most useful information you could possibly have if you want to help — and it’s the gap our app fills. Run a few mock checks at home and you’ll see, sound by sound, exactly which graphemes need work.

Should I prepare my child at home?

Schools cover the curriculum. Their job. But because the check is short and very specific, a small amount of focused practice at home — five minutes a day for the six weeks before the check — has a measurably bigger effect than a longer, less-focused approach. The mistake parents make is either doing nothing or buying a thick workbook and trying to “do phonics” for an hour. The right approach is short, daily, and targeted at the sounds your child finds hard. Our 7-week preparation plan walks through exactly how to spend each of those weeks.

Where this guide fits in

This page is the overview. If you’ve just heard about the check and want a single explainer, this is it. From here, the most common next questions parents have:

• How do I prepare my child in the weeks before the check?
• What are alien words and why does the check use them?
• What are split digraphs, and why do children find them hard?
• What’s the pass mark, and what happens if my child doesn’t pass?
• Which past papers can we run as mocks?

If you’d rather just see what the check feels like for your child, open the app for a free 5-minute session — no signup, no email.