Year 1 Worksheets (Ages 5–6)

The phonics screening check is a short one-to-one reading assessment that every Year 1 child in an English state school takes in June. The child reads 40 words aloud to their teacher: 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words that follow English spelling patterns but have no meaning. Pseudo-words are marked with an alien picture so the child knows to sound them out. It checks decoding, not comprehension.

By the end of Year 1 a child is expected to decode most Phase 5 words, read the Year 1 common exception words, write several sentences with capital letters and full stops, count to 100, know number bonds to 20, add and subtract within 20, tell the time to the hour and half past, and name common 2D and 3D shapes. These are the Year 1 expectations set out in the National Curriculum programmes of study.

Most children begin Year 1 consolidating Phases 3 and 4, then spend the bulk of the year on Phase 5, which teaches alternative spellings for sounds already known (for example ai, ay and a-e) and alternative pronunciations for known graphemes (ow in cow and in snow). Schools using other validated schemes cover the same content under different names, and the screening check draws on Phases 2 to 5.

Reception sheets work on single sounds, letter formation and numbers to 20 with plenty of pictures and tracing. Year 1 sheets expect independent reading of short decodable passages, spelling with digraphs and trigraphs, writing full sentences, and written calculations with numbers to 100. Instructions are longer and children are expected to work for 15 to 20 minutes at a stretch.

Practise blending for a few minutes every day using both real and made-up words, and point out the alien words so your child knows to sound them out rather than guess. Past check papers, which the Department for Education publishes, are useful for getting used to the format. Do not drill the words from earlier papers; the check uses new words each year.