Phonics

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised

Intention

At Randlay Primary School and Nursery we aim to give our pupils the best possible start on their phonics journey to becoming fully fluent readers and skilled spellers. We recognise that the most effective way to do this is through the progression of a systematic, synthetic phonics programme. We use the DfE validated scheme ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ to equip our pupils with the phonic knowledge and skills that they need to successfully read and spell words.

This is the link to Little Wandle’s website.

For parents | Letters and Sounds

We highly value reading in all aspects of our curriculum and we strive to ensure that all of our pupils are able to read with confidence, fluency, enjoyment and understanding.

Alongside this, we recognise that enjoying reading has the biggest impact on future academic success (OECD). We aim to foster a love of reading through plenty of opportunities to read for pleasure. These include daily class story times, accessing our inviting reading areas, a library book system, book clubs, celebrating stories through events such as World Book day and our class ‘Bears in a Bag’.

Implementation

How we teach phonics

Phonics lessons are taught everyday in nursery, reception, year 1 and year 2.

Nursery

In nursery we follow the Little Wandle ‘Foundations in Phonics’ programme that prepares children with the foundational skills they will need to be successful readers. They develop their ability to listen to and use sounds so that they can say and hear the sounds in words accurately. They also playfully begin to blend sounds together to make words. There are also plenty of opportunities to enjoy stories, songs and nursery rhymes.

Wordless books are used to introduce the conventions of story telling and are used to promote lots of book talk.

Spelling skills are developed by segmenting words into the sounds they are made of and the use of mark making to develop the gross and fine motor skills needed to write.

Reception

In reception, pupils are introduced to the progression of graphemes (letters) and the phonemes (sounds) that they make. These are taught using picture prompts and catchphrases as well as the use of pronunciation phrases and formation phrases to ensure that they are saying and writing the letters correctly. They also start to learn the ‘tricky’ words that cannot be sounded out but that they will see often in reading. Throughout the reception year phases 2, 3 and 4 of the programme will be covered. They will learn digraphs (2 letters making 1 sound such as sh, ee) and trigraphs (3 letters making 1 sound e.g. igh, ear)

During phonics sessions pupils practice reading words with the focus sounds, they learn new tricky words and apply their new learning to spell words.

Year 1

In year 1, children continue to ‘grow’ their knowledge of the alphabetic code. They learn new graphemes (letters) discovering different ways to make the same sound and also alternative phonemes (sounds) the same graphemes can make e.g. ea in tea and bread.

Pupils further their recognition of tricky words and continue to apply their new learning through spelling words and writing sentences.

Year 1 covers phase 5 of the phonics programme.

Year 2

Once children are secure with their phonic knowledge they start to access the Little Wandle spelling programme. This reviews their previous learning, developing their confidence with spelling sounds they have already learnt and then extending these to look at new spellings. They learn spelling rules and how to add suffix endings to words. They continue to learn how to spell ‘prickly words’ that do not follow the conventional rules.

Alongside the spelling programme is Little Wandle Fluency which supports pupils to read with a good level of fluency. They access a class text which is explored through a reading journal approach through rereading and focusing on different aspects of comprehension.

Key Stage 2

The Little Wandle programme continues into key stage 2. Pupils needing to secure their phonics knowledge will access the rapid catch-up programme to consolidate learning and develop their reading and spelling confidence. The Little Wandle Fluency books are also used throughout key stage 2, at the appropriate fluency level, to further develop fluent reading.

Reading Practice Sessions

Once children are confident with the graphemes (letters) and tricky words that they have been taught, they will apply these as part in three guided reading sessions per week. Each session starts with a pre-teach to review the graphemes and words that they will be using and to ensure that the meaning of new vocabulary is understood.

Read 1- Decoding- This focuses on word reading, blending to read words when needed and recognising the tricky words.

Read 2- Prosody- Reading with expression! This explores how punctuation can be used to add expression in reading and also to emphasize moods, feelings or significant words.

Read 3- Comprehension- This book talk session ensures pupils understand what they have read through exploring word meanings and a range of comprehension skills.

Phonics Screening Check

Towards the end of year 1 there is a statutory phonics screening check that pupils are required to take. This is a check of 20 real and 20 non-real words that check your child’s ability to recognise and blend words accurately. There will be a parents information about this in the Spring term but please ask your child’s class teacher if you have any questions about this.

How we Support SEND

We use adaptive teaching to enable all pupils to access the phonics curriculum and make progress. This will be carefully planned to meet the individual needs of our pupils. This can include:

Pre-teaching opportunities
Frequent opportunities to revisit and consolidate learning
Highly visual resources, classroom displays and table-top aids
Adaptation of resources- colours, print size, textures,
Additional resources
1:1 or small group additional support
Keep-Up or Rapid-Catch Up Interventions
Opportunities to respond in different ways- pictures, word cards

Helping at Home

Encourage your child to enjoy reading. Share stories, songs and rhymes and talk about the parts they enjoyed.
Listen to your child read their school reading book to you. Lots of repeated practice is the key to your child becoming a fluent and confident reader.
Support your child to learn their weekly spellings (year 1 upwards).

IMPACT

Through embedding a rigorous and consistent approach to teaching phonics and reading our learners are empowered to become fully-fluent, confident readers who can access a range of texts for both pleasure and learning. They will also have a secure knowledge of spellings and their associated rules and patterns which can confidently be applied in all aspects of writing.

This will be reflected in their attainment by:

-Reaching expected outcomes for the reading Early Learning Goals at the end of reception.

-Passing the phonics screening check. We aim for a pass rate of at least 95 %.

-Achieving end of year age-expected outcomes in reading, writing and spelling.

-Achieving the expected outcomes in the end of Key Stage 2 reading, writing and spelling assessments.

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