At Wood Field Primary school we follow Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Revised to help children get off to a fantastic start with their early reading and
writing. Little Wandle sets out a detailed and systematic programme for teaching
phonic skills with the aim of children being able to use these skills independently in
their reading and writing. 

All of the staff teaching phonics (including teachers and support staff) have been
trained by Little Wandle, ensuring that our teaching is consistent and provides
pupils with the opportunity to make fantastic progress. Whenever phonics is taught
the children will have consistent resources throughout the school and these are
always readily available.

Phonics is taught daily throughout the whole of the Early Years Foundation Stage
and Year 1. When required, phonics teaching and support will be provided beyond
Year 1 to ensure all pupils can read fluently.
Please find further information below about how phonics is taught at Wood Field.

Intent
Phonics (reading and spelling)

At Wood Field, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and
writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching
phonics in Reception and 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.

Comprehension

At Wood Field we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us,
they 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.

Implementation

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’steaching 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 expectations of progress: 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 Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
• We timetable phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check.

Teaching reading in Reception & Year 1: Reading practice sessions three times a week

 

• We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge.
• are 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 three key reading skills:
• decoding
• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression,
• Comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
• In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

 

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. The children are able to choose this book themselves through visits to the school library.
• 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.

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 is used:

• daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
• weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address theseimmediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

Summative assessment for Reception and Year 1 is used:

• every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
• by SMT/SLT and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

A placement assessment is used:

• with any child new to the school in Reception and Year 1 to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching.

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing
the check re-sits it in Year 2.