Phonics

Intent

At Lynsted and Norton Primary School, we aim to develop confident, fluent and passionate readers and writers from an early stage. We use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised which is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP). This is a process that first teaches the letter sounds, building up to blending these sounds together to achieve full pronunciation of whole words. 

Application of phonics to reading The National Curriculum for English (2014) aims to ensure that all pupils:

• read easily, fluently and with good understanding
• develop the habit of reading widely and often, for both pleasure and information
• acquire a wide vocabulary, an understanding of grammar and knowledge of linguistic conventions for reading, writing and spoken language.

Reading underpins children’s access to the curriculum and it clearly impacts on their achievement. There is considerable research to show that children who enjoy reading and choose to read benefit not only academically, but also socially and emotionally. To be able to read, children need to be taught an efficient strategy to decode words. That strategy is phonics. It is essential that children are actively taught and supported to use phonics as the only approach to decoding. Other strategies must be avoided. Phonic decoding skills must be practised until children become automatic and fluent reading is established.

Implementation

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised 

At Lynsted and Norton Primary School we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised programme as our phonics programme. Fluent decoding is only one component of reading. Comprehension skills need to be taught to enable children to make sense of what they read, build on what they already know and give them a desire to want to read. Reading increases children’s vocabulary because they encounter words they would rarely hear or use in everyday speech. Furthermore, children who read widely and frequently also have more secure general knowledge.

Reading Practice Sessions

Children are given daily opportunities to apply the phonics they have learned by reading fully decodable books. The phonic progression in these books match the progression of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Reading practice sessions take place daily. 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 three key reading skills:

• decoding
• prosody – reading with meaning, stress and intonation
• comprehension – understanding the text.

Children will take home there decodable book after reading it three times at school. It is important that children practise their reading skills at home to become an increasingly fluent reader. They can also choose a book from our library to bring home too. In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. This is a book they have chosen independently to share with an adult at home. The children are not expected to read these independently but share them, discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a non-fiction book and most importantly; have fun!

Impact

The Little Wandle approach using systematic, consistent and repetitive teaching of Phonics, ensures our pupils are prepared for the next stage of their learning as they move from Reception into Key Stage 1 and beyond. Assessment is regularly used to monitor our children's progress and allows us to quickly identify children needing extra support. 

Assessment for learning is used daily through teacher observation to identify children needing daily keep-up support. We also assess weekly in our Review lessons to identify gaps and address them quickly to ensure our children are becoming secure and fluent readers and writers. 

We use Little Wandle assessments at the end of each term to assess progress and identify any gaps that need to be addressed. The Heat Maps we then receive give us a very clear understanding of our pupils strengths and areas where support is needed. Any child who is accessing Daily keep-up support is assessed every 3 weeks to ensure they are making rapid progress. Our children on the Rapid Catch Up Program are assessed at the end of each unit, usually every 4 weeks, to ensure the support they are receiving is impactful. 

Our pupils in Year 1 also sit the Phonics Screening Check and any child who does not pass the check will re-sit it in Year 2 and be placed on our Rapid Catch-Up program. 

Support for parents 

This link will take you to the progression document, so that you can see when your child would learn each sound Programme overview.

This link will take you to the parents section of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds website;  there are some really helpful videos on here Videos for parents

 Click here for our Early Reading and Phonics policy