How is Phonics taught in our school?

At St Mary’s Catholic Infants, we use the Little Wandle phonics programme to teach our children to read, spell and write.  Little Wandle is effective in teaching pupils to read, spell and write because it starts from what all children know from a very early age: the sounds of their own language. From there, it takes them in carefully sequenced, incremental steps and teaches them how each of the 44+ sounds in the English language can be spelt.

Our Phonics and Early Reading 

At St Mary’s Catholic Infant School, it is essential that our approach to teaching phonics and reading is accessible to all learners, regardless of background.

 

Intent

 

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At St Mary’s Catholic Infant School, we aim for all our children to become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching Little Wandle Foundations in our Nursery and then, from Reception, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

As a result, our children display confidence when tackling unfamiliar words as they read. At St Mary’s Catholic Infant School, we also model the application of applying phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Comprehension

At St Mary’s Catholic Infant School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they have made good progress with their reading and are able to read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who monitors and supports our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.

Implementation

Foundations for Phonics in Nursery

We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include: 

• sharing high-quality stories and poems
• learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
• activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
• attention to high-quality language.

 

We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Little Wandle Foundations supports the non-statutory guidance on Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters as well as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. We use it as part of our wider provision for Communication and Language, and Literacy. It supports children to: 

• develop their phonological awareness, including rhyme, alliteration, syllables, initial and voice sounds, and oral blending
• love stories and rhymes, and learn by heart a bank of familiar favourites
• increase their vocabulary and confidence to talk
• improve their listening and ability to take part in back-and-forth conversations.

We believe that the priority in Nursery should be to build the foundations for phonics for all children. Research tells us that disadvantaged children start Nursery behind their more fortunate peers. By leaving formal phonics teaching to Reception, Foundations allows us to devote more time to working with children who need extra help to develop the skills and behaviours that underpin successful reading.

 

Daily Phonics Lessons in Reception and Year 1

We teach phonics for approximately 20 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to full-length lessons as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised 2021: Programme Progression 

Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.

Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

 

Daily Keep-Up Lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult.

Daily Keep-up lessons follow the Little Wandle progression and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition so that every child secures their learning.

 

SEND Programme and OOYG (Children working Out of Year Group)

Where necessary, children who are unable to access the Little Wandle Programme for Reception and Year 1, access the Little Wandle SEND Programme in small groups or 1:1 depending on the needs of the child. Children working out of year group may also access the Little Wandle SEND Programme if appropriate.

 

Daily phonics and spelling in Year 2

During the Autumn Term, Year 2 revisit the Year 1 content for the Summer Term to ensure any gaps are addressed. This also ensures that after the long summer break children have the opportunity to refresh and consolidate their knowledge of all the taught GPCs ready to begin the Little Wandle Bridge for Spelling in the Spring Term. This ensures that children secure the trickier elements of Phase 5 and can apply this alphabetic knowledge in both reading and spelling.

We use the Phase 5 review assessment at the end of Autumn 1 to identify any children who may need more support in preparation for the final part of the Phase 5 teaching. We reassess after teaching the final 5 weeks of the Phase 5 review. This shows the children that are fully secure and demonstrate a readiness for the Bridge to Spelling. Any gaps in teaching will be addressed through further small group intervention as necessary.

Children with larger gaps in their phonic knowledge than their peers and who are not working at the age-related expectations for reading or have not passed the Phonics Screening Check, will continue to have daily phonics teaching in order to ensure they have the best opportunity to catch up. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. 

 

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions twice a week

From Reception to Year 2, we teach reading sessions twice a week. These:

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of no more than six children. 
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11 to 20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’. 
• monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on two key reading skills: 

• Session 1: Decoding: teaching children to use phonic knowledge to read words
• Session 2: Prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

We believe that developing children’s fluency and prosody are key skills which should be securely embedded and that these skills bridge the gap on the route to developing comprehension. Through discussions with Little Wandle English Hub Leaders, a focus on these aspects of reading in the early years allows us to ensure children confidently begin to develop their comprehension as they head into Year 2 and beyond.

In Reception, initially, children will read wordless books. In these sessions, children review GPCS and are taught blending using teacher-led blending. Once children can blend, they progress onto decodable books matched to their secure phonic knowledge.

Children read each book twice to develop phonemic awareness and vocabulary as well as book behaviours.

In Year 1, the children follow the Little Wandle guidance for these sessions by having a decoding session and then a prosody session across the week. Decodable books are matched to children’s secure phonic knowledge.

In Year 2, we ensure children complete reading the core programme decodable books (up to Phase 5 Set 5). To exit the programme, we complete the final fluency assessment to ensure children can read with adequate speed and accuracy: approximately 60 words per minute with 90%+ accuracy.

 

Teaching Reading: Fluency Programme

From Spring 1, we teach reading to children in Year 2 who have exited the core programme using Little Wandle Fluency.

Each Fluency reading lesson is approximately 20-25 minutes. The structure of every lesson is the same: 

• A short pre-read to practise reading words and to support vocabulary
• Children read aloud for ten minutes and the teacher ‘taps in’ to hear every child read
• Focussed teaching of prosody, repeated reading and comprehension through discussion

We assess reading speed and accuracy at the end of Spring 2 and Summer 2. These assessments are used to monitor progress, allocate books.

We also use Assessment for Learning (AfL) and our professional judgement to assess each child’s progress in reading, so we can ensure that they have the right books to meet their needs.

We review children’s prosody by using the Prosody grid. This gives us a picture of how well the child is reading aloud.

Comprehension is taught through dialogic talk so that children can enjoy discussing what they have read and link it to their experiences. Teachers use their AfL to address misconceptions and develop children’s curiosity and engagement with each book.

 

Home Reading

The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family. 

• Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children. 
• We share the research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents through workshops and leaflets.
• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.

Additional reading support for vulnerable children

Children who are finding it difficult to keep up with the phonics programme take part in additional interventions for phonics and read their reading practice book regularly to an adult in school.

We prioritise children who may not have reading support at home or who may not have access to books. We ensure that they have individual reading times with volunteers and staff to share quality children’s literature to promote a love of reading.

 

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. By following the Little Wandle Reading Guidance, this ensures that we all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
• Lesson templates, prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
• The Reading Leader and SLT use checklists and templates to regularly monitor and observe teaching. Summative data is used to identify children who need additional support and have gaps in learning.

 

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success’ (OECD 2002).

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa’ (OECD 2010).

We highly value reading for pleasure and work hard as a school to grow our reading for pleasure pedagogy. 

• Parents are also invited into school to take part in reading workshops as well as sharing books with their children at home.
• In school we read aloud to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including those that reflect the children at St Mary’s Catholic Infant School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures. 
• Children are encouraged to vote for the book they wish to hear read, from the given selection and this helps to develop their understanding of democracy.
• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
• In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free-flow time and the books are refreshed regularly.
• Children choose from our range of carefully chosen books to take home and share with an adult.
• As children progress through school, we take time to get to know them as readers and ensure that we engage in meaningful conversations about the books that they have read. By doing this we can recommend authors and genres of books to expand their interests. During the school year each class spends some time learning about a range of different authors and gets the opportunity to hear/read books by those authors.
• The school library is available for classes to use. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (online author visits, workshops, national events etc).
• We use the Everybody read! resources to grow our teachers’ knowledge of current books, the most recent research and to grow our own Reading for Pleasure practice.

Impact

Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

Assessment for Learning (AfL) is used: 

• daily within class to identify children who require Daily Keep-up support, as well as words and GPCs that need additional teaching
• to plan repeated practice throughout the day to ensure all children secure learning

Summative assessments are uploaded onto the Assessments tracker for Reception and Year 1. These are used: 

• to generate visual reports (pupil heatmaps, pupil trends and books levels, and a summary analysis) for individual children, classes and whole year groups
• by teachers, Reading Leaders and SLT who drill down and look at the data at GPC, word, tricky word and sentence level
• by SLT to scrutinise and plan how to narrow the attainment gaps between different groups of children and to put in place any additional support for teachers.

Children with SEND are tracked using the Little Wandle SEND Excel Spreadsheet for small groups of children. This shows gaps and highlights what children still need to learn in order to build on their reading skills.

At the end of each half term children are assessed to see progress and to identify gaps in learning that need to be reviewed or retaught. This data helps us to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.

Fluency Assessments 

Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used:

• in Year 1 and Year 2, when children are reading the Phase 5 Set 3, 4 and 5 books
• to assess when children are ready to exit their programme
• for children in Year 2 who are taught Little Wandle Fluency. These assessments identify the best Fluency book level for each child. We assess the children every term (every 12 weeks or so).

Once children are able to reach the required level of the fluency assessments, this enables them to exit the programme. They do not need to read any more fully decodable books due to them having sufficient fluency to tackle any book at age-related expectations.

Children new to the school undertake a placement assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and to plan and provide appropriate extra teaching if necessary.

 

Statutory Assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check resits it in Year 2.

If you would like to learn more about our approach to phonics, please visit the Little Wandle website which has lots of information for parents to support reading and phonics at home.

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