Phonics

Since September 2022 we have been using the government validated systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) called ‘Little Wandle: Letters & Sounds Revised’. The programme is designed to teach children to read from Reception to Year 2, using the skill of decoding and blending sounds together to form words. “The Little Wandle programme provides a full progression through all commonly occurring GPCs* (sounds), working from simple to more complex, and taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words.”

Please access the Little Wandle website (link below) to find more information. The ‘For parents’ section provides videos of how to pronounce the Phase 2 and Phase 3 sounds and how we teach the reading of words.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/my-letters-and-sounds/

Intent

At St. Mary’s, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We value reading as a life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong learners and that success in reading opens doors to a world of knowledge. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Phonics is the process that is used to help children break down words into sounds, as well as building letter and word recognition. This can then enable children to use unknown words in the future. Children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read the words.

Implementation

Our whole curriculum is shaped by our school vision which aims to enable all children, regardless of background, ability, additional needs, to flourish to become the very best version of themselves they can possibly be. Phonics at St Mary’s follows the Department of Education approved document ‘Little Wandle’. This allows our phonics teaching and learning to be progressive from Nursery up to Year 2 as well as allowing children’s listening and speaking skills to develop. On entry to Nursery children begin with Phase 1 and continue to progress through to Phase 6 by Year 2.

In the Foundation Stage, Phonics is taught daily where children have the opportunity to revisit previous learning, practise and apply new skills in structured but engaging ways. As we progress into Year 1 and 2, the teaching of phonics is organised into groups depending on children’s prior Phonics knowledge and looking at where individual’s need challenge or support. Children in Key Stage 2 who did not meet the expected level for Phonics are tracked using Phonics Tracker. In Key Stage 1 where extra intervention is necessary, children follow the Little Wandle keep up programme which is led by a fully trained member of staff. If extra support is required throughout Key Stage 2 then the children follow the ‘Little Wandle Rapid Catch Up’ programme. This is again led by a Little Wandle trained member of staff.

We ensure children are able to read 95% of their phonic reading book before they take it home, so they only need to practise their fluency at home with their families.

Pupils have regular reading sessions with an adult, and we ensure the pupils are regularly practising and applying their phonics knowledge. In the EYFS the continuous provision matches the pupil’s current knowledge and understanding whilst ensuring the children are suitably challenged. Teachers regularly assess the pupil’s phonics knowledge using the Little Wandle phonics assessment, phonics tracker and Literacy early learning goal (in EYFS). The children have reading books which they are encouraged to read regularly at home which match their current phonics level. Alongside their well-matched phonic reading book all children have a reading for pleasure book for them to share with family at home.

We encourage reading for pleasure through children having a choice of challenging and enriching texts as well as building in time for children to read independently and as part of a whole class. All children have daily opportunities to read a variety of material in school, including regularly with an adult.

Additional Support

Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice has regular keep-up support, led 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 use the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the keep-up resources at pace.

If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan and deliver Phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps

Additional Phonics and Reading support for vulnerable children

Children in Reception and Key Stage 1 receive additional Phonics ‘keep up’ sessions either on a 1:1 basis or in a small group.

Children who are receiving additional phonics ‘keep-up’ sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.

In Years 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in the same way as Key Stage 1, for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Children across Years 4 – 6 who need additional support will have regular 1:1 reading with decodable books and are involved in the rapid catch-up intervention.

Impact

The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children at St Mary’s are equipped with the knowledge, understanding and skills that will enable them to be ready for the KS3 curriculum and for life as an adult in modern Britain.

Progress is measured through the embedded use of the Little Wandle assessment tracker. These results are measured against the reading attainment of children nationally and attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1. The teaching of phonics also feeds into the Trust’s assessment framework which allows us to assess whether our children are knowing and remembering more within our English curriculum. This is assessed on a formative basis using a wide range of retrieval activities woven into our curriculum offer and captured on our well-established whole class feedback forms.

We want our children to experience and enjoy a rich and relevant phonics curriculum, to leave primary school confident that they know and can do more.

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage One. This way, children can focus on developing their fluency and comprehension as they move through the school. Phonics allows young readers to develop their reading comprehension and decode new words as they read. With practice, this action becomes so automatic that they are able to easily understand the overall meaning of words while they are reading. Extensive reading helps children broaden their vocabulary and general knowledge.

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 these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

-Summative assessment 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 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.

Statutory assessment

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

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as through the half-termly ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ summative assessments.

Foundations for Phonics (Nursery)

Little Wandle Tuning Into Sounds Nursery

Little Wandle Foundations For Phonics Nursery

Foundations Love Of Reading Nursery

Phase 2-4 (Reception)

Programme Overview Reception

Phase 4 Tricky Words Reception

Phase 3 Tricky Words Reception

Phase 2 Tricky Words Reception

Grapheme Mats Phase 2&3 Reception

Pronunciation Guide Lent 1 Reception

Pronunciation Guide Advent 2 Reception