To start, children are immersed in activities which promote listening to environmental and instrumental sounds, body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and voice sounds. They then begin oral segmenting and blending of familiar words, embedding their learning within language-rich provision and activities. Children will often be secure with this stage when they leave pre-school. Children then begin to distinguish between speech sounds and blend and segment words orally. They will learn the letter names (grapheme) and sound (phoneme) of each letter of the alphabet, then begin to represent each of 44 phonemes by a grapheme blending to read. Children then broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes, learning alternative pronunciations. Children progress to read longer and less familiar texts independently and with increasing fluency.

From November 2021, we are introducing a new phonics scheme called Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised 2021. It follows the same progression of sounds as our existing scheme but this includes fully decodable books. Segmenting –identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word and being able to write down the letters for each sound i.e. him h-i-m. Match the picture. Select pictures from magazine or online and practise oral blending i.e. a picture of a beach, the child will need to orally sound out ‘ b-ea-ch’. You can also show some pictures and then cards showing words to match the picture and the child has to match the word with the correct picture once they have sounded it out and blended. Our combined phonics and reading programmes follow guidance set out in the government’s new Reading Framework which outlines the huge importance of building children’s fluency in reading, expanding language and creating a love of reading. Research shows that creating able readers really is the key to allowing children to succeed in all areas of their learning. The teaching of Phonics involves introducing the children to the correct terminology to help build their skills and work more independently with their reading.

We teach with each book three times and through this repeated reading children are taught to read with expression and understanding. This means that the books we use need to be of the best quality. They need to be fully decodable and matched to our progression, but they need to connect with our children too. If we want our children to see reading as something that is worth putting all that hard work into, then we need to make learning to read worth it. Books should be mirrors of our lives and doors that open into the world, even the very first books we teach children to read with. If we make learning to read a pleasure and children feel that reading has purpose then we are fostering readers for life. During all lessons, children are encouraged to use the Grapheme Mats (Grow the Code)’’in the classroom to help them to make phonetically plausible decisions with their independent writing. As of 10th July 2021 Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is a phonics programme validated by the Department for Education. For more information about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, book your free spot for their first briefing of the new school year on 2nd September 2021 at 3.45pm. Write down some words get children to read and then cut up words into graphemes or use the flashcards (e.g. snail would be cut up into 's-n-ai-l' to include digraph. Then get children to reassemble word correctly. They may then like to think of rhyming words and have a go at spelling these. This could lead to a discussion about how different graphemes can represent the same sound (e.g. a_e in whale).

As the children revisit the phase 3 graphemes they will learn a catchphrase to match the sounds. These become even more important when we start learning alternative spellings for the same grapheme. We will no longer to individual reading in class. The children will have 3 reading sessions a week with a teacher or TA. Each reading session will focus on different things.

Phonics Book Bag Readers

As they learn different spellings they ‘grow the code’ and learn to use grapheme charts to help them choose the right spelling. These will be used later in the year. Reading practise is an integral part of the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ scheme. Each week the children will have further opportunities, as part of the ‘Practise and apply’ section of their phonics lesson, to embed their learning of new sounds and to practise the decoding skills they have learnt. Each week your child will have access to two types of reading material:

We support this further from year 2 and in Key Stage 2 with our spellings programme and weekly SPAG lessons in Year 3 upwards. We continue to support children with ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ through Key Stage 2 where needed. A colour book-banded reading book which is fully decodable. Children should be able to sound out any words that they are unsure of, enabling them to build further confidence when reading. This continues our practice of children taking home a physical book, matched to their reading level. Collins Big Cat Phonics - Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised | Big Cat for Little Wandle Fluency Sets Practise– using the sound in words – Spotting the new phoneme in words, modelling blending and then allowing the children to read words with the new sound from flashcards?We want children to become lifelong readers, therefore it is essential that they are encouraged to read for pleasure. The desire of wanting to read will help with the skill of reading. To help foster a love of reading, children should take a book home that they can share and enjoy with their parent/carer. Involving the children in the choice of this book is important. These books offer a wealth of opportunities for talking about the pictures and enjoying the story. We want to offer a variety of books, including non-fiction, so they can enjoy a range of writing. Parents/carers need to understand that they should not expect their child to read this book independently and certainly should not try to get their child to do so. The book is for the parent/carer to read to or with the child. Again, it is good to talk about the book with the child, but important not to turn the discussion into a test. The goal is enjoyment.