Phonics

 

 

At St Bede’s Catholic Primary School, reading is highly valued and promoted to be an enjoyable activity and an essential life skill. Children are encouraged to become confident, fluent and enthusiastic readers. We want every child to be a reader, giving them the ability and skills to access learning across the curriculum, use reading competently and confidently in their everyday life, as well as grow a love for reading and all of the opportunities that come with it. 

At St. Bede’s, we know that for all our children to become fluent readers and writers, phonics must be taught through a systematic and structured phonics programme. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised to deliver high quality, engaging phonics and reading sessions to our pupils.

We also recognise the importance and impact that reading widely and choosing quality texts, allows children to develop a lifelong love of reading. We strongly advocate, promote and support our children to become lifelong readers. 

Phonics 

Phonics Lead- Mrs K White & Mrs E Brockbank ( Literacy specialist St Benedict’s)

Our phonics teaching starts in Nursery and follows a very specific sequence that allows pupils to build on their previous learning. Before a child ever learns to link a letter to a sound (phonics), they need a solid foundation in Pre-Phonics Skills- training the ears to “tune in” to the sounds of language before the eyes ever start looking at the alphabet. This includes: environmental sound discrimination; rhythm and rhyme; alliteration and oral blending/ segmenting. 

Phonics is taught daily to all children in EYFS and Key Stage One.

Staff systematically teach children the relationship between letter sounds and the written spelling patterns, the graphemes, which represent letter sounds.

Phonic displays in classrooms further enhance the rich literacy environment for early readers and support the children in applying their learning throughout the day. 

• In the Nursery, children follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised ‘Foundations for Phonics’ guidance. The focus is on daily oral blending and language development through high quality stories and nursery rhymes. Children are also taught to listen with focus e.g to environmental sounds and music.
• In Reception and Y1, children follow the progression within the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. Phonics is taught daily and there is a review session on a Friday.
• Phonics starts in Reception by week 3 to ensure the children make a strong start.
• By the end of Reception, children will have been taught up to the end of phase 4.
• By the end of Y1, children will have been taught up to the end of phase 5.
• Reception lessons start at 10 minutes, with daily additional oral blending – increasing to 30 minutes as soon as possible.
• Y1 lessons are 30 minutes long.

Children who are accessing phonics are carefully matched to reading books to take home; which only contain sounds and tricky words the children have been taught. This is called a reading practice book. We use ‘Big Cat’ reading books and the ‘Big Cat Little Wandle’ books published by Harper Collins. 

Children are taught to identify letter sounds within words and to ‘blend’ the letter sounds together to read a word e.g. ‘c- oa- t’  ‘sh-ee-p’. Children are also taught to read ‘tricky’ words that they are unable to read by decoding such as ‘the’ ‘was’. 

The reading practice book will be read in school three times as part of a group before it is taken home to share with an adult. Books are changed weekly and should be shared/practiced with an adult at home at least three times. We encourage parents and guardians to add a comment into their child’s reading record so that teaching staff and parents/guardians can maintain a dialogue that supports their child as they learn to read.

In addition to the reading practice book, children also take home a ‘Share a Story’ Book. These books will help children to understand that reading is something that we often do for pleasure. Children are not expected to read sharing books independently but should share and enjoy them with an adult at home. 

Reading practice sessions

• Children in Reception, Y1, Y2 and in Key Stage Two , where appropriate, use their phonics knowledge by using a full matched decodable reader in a small group reading practice session.
• These sessions are 15 minutes long and take place three times a week.
• There are approximately 6 children in a group.
• The sessions follow the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.
• The children then take the same book home the following week to practise.
• In Reception these sessions start by week 3. Children who are not decoding, complete additional blending sessions, following the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sound Revised. In Reception and Y1, at the end of each week there is a review session which recaps the learning. There are also whole review weeks (pre-planned and bespoke review weeks to address gaps identified by the class teacher’s ongoing formative assessment).

In Reception and Y1, the children are assessed at the end of every half term using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker. Children identified in Reception and Y1 as in danger of falling behind are immediately identified and daily ‘keep up’ sessions are put in place – sessions follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

The children in Y1 sit the Phonics Screening Check in the summer term.

Children who do not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Y1, will re-sit this in Y2.

In Y2 children begin the year revising Phase 5 and ensuring they are secure and fluent. As the year progresses, the children will move onto the Little Wandle Fluency books to support their development as a reader. They will be taught how to read with appropriate pace, intonation and expression (prosody) through continued reading sessions three times a week. 

Any children who are not yet ready to exit the phonics programme, will continue to be taught through the Little Wandle rapid catch-up programme until they are secure and can move to the next stage of their reading journey. 

We aspire for all pupils to learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities and make progress. We always aim for the percentage of pupils working at ARE by the end of each Key Stage to be at least in line with national averages.

If you are a parent and would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow this link to find the Reception and Year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/