Phonics screening check: why this test taken by six-year-olds in England just isn’t needed

At the end of year one, when they are five or six, all children at state schools in England must take a test called the phonics screening check. The check measures their ability to use synthetic phonics – an approach to teaching reading – to blend sounds together to read words. If they don’t pass, children take the test again in the next school year.

However, recent research from think tank the Education Policy Institute suggests that there is no evidence that the phonics screening check leads to improvements in reading later in a child’s school journey.

In addition, the report found no evidence that the check has narrowed attainment gaps in reading – such as the difference in results between children from richer and poorer backgrounds – by the end of primary school.

The Education Policy Institute report argues that, according to data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) which takes place every five years, results do not provide any indication that the phonics screening check has positively affected the reading skills of children in England.

This message is in stark contrast to claims made in 2023 by the previous government that more children are reading confidently and reaching their potential as a result of the check. But the Pirls data shows that, although the average reading score improved very slightly in 2021 compared to the average score in 2011, there has been little substantive variation in the scores since 2001. Therefore reading scores are not improving substantially over time.

These are worrying findings, because this is a high-stakes assessment for schools. The results of the phonics screening check are reported annually to the Department for Education. In fact, the Education Policy Institute report found that nearly 40% of teachers believe the test should be scrapped altogether.

These results chime with the findings of my own research, carried out with Margaret Clark in 2018. We found that 94% of teachers did not think that the phonics screening check provided them with any useful information about children’s reading. We also found that 68% of teachers did not think that schools should be legally required to carry it out.

All in on phonics

The PSC was introduced in 2012, following the introduction of synthetic phonics in all English primary schools. Synthetic phonics is an approach to teaching reading in which words are broken down into the smallest meaningful units of sound, called phonemes, which are represented by groups of letters called graphemes.

In the phonics screening check, children are presented with 40 words to read. These include words such as “boy”, “dreams” and “elbow”, but the assessment also includes pseudo words such as “bep”, “fod”, “chesh” and “splet”. The only way children can “read” these words is by using their knowledge of synthetic phonics. The phonics screening check is therefore an assessment of a child’s ability to decode unfamiliar words, and not an assessment of their reading fluency or comprehension skills.

I have argued previously that the phonics screening check serves little purpose – and even has adverse effects. It can damage children’s mental health, as children become anxious about taking the assessment. It puts an emphasis on “teaching to the test”, and the increased curriculum time devoted to phonics takes place at the expense of promoting reading for understanding and enjoyment.

The Education Policy Institute report has found evidence that children who “fail” the check in year one are more likely to be recorded as having special educational needs in year two.

The schools inspectorate Ofsted has rightly highlighted that reading is the gateway to learning. If children cannot read well, they will not be able to access the full curriculum. But one in four pupils start secondary school having not reached the expected standard in reading at the end of primary school.

If a quarter of pupils are not reaching the right standard in reading, it seems that the phonics screening check has not ensured that every child leaves primary school as a fluent and confident reader.