Evaluation of the Phonics Screening Check: First Interim Report

Key Findings

• Teachers were overwhelmingly positive about phonics as an approach to teaching reading, and its contribution towards early reading development. In the majority of schools, however, other strategies alongside phonics were also supported.
• More than half (53 per cent) of teachers reported that they taught systematic synthetic phonics ‘first and fast’ (i.e. they used a systematic synthetic phonics programme as the prime approach to decoding print), although teachers’ responses regarding the use of other methods to teach children to decode words were not wholly consistent with this data.
• A third of schools reported making changes to phonics teaching in anticipation of the check. These changes included: increased assessment of progress in phonics; increasing the time devoted to phonics teaching; and starting to use a phonics programme more systematically.
• The majority of literacy coordinators (80 per cent) reported that the results would inform the identification of children experiencing difficulties with phonics while 61 per cent reported that the results would inform the design of specific teaching plans for children experiencing difficulties with phonics.

Related Titles

Evaluation of the Phonics Screening Check , Evaluation of the Phonics Screening Check , Phonics screening check evaluation , Phonics Screening Check evaluation

Sponsor Details

DfE