Our Intent

We believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach Early Reading and Phonics through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a complete systematic and synthetic phonics programme (SSP). We start teaching phonics in Pre-School and 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.

We prioritise the teaching of phonics; we teach phonics daily in Reception and Year 1. It is vitally important that children review and revisit Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into the children's long term memory. Our consistent approach to phonics ensures that children are given the best possible foundation for reading, writing and language skills. 

Children need to learn to read as quickly and reasonably as possible, so that they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. Our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable; children who are not keeping up with their peers are given additional practice immediately through keep-up sessions.

Children enjoy a range of multi-sensory resources to support their phonics learning. On-going assessment of children's progress takes place and the books children read in school and take home to read are fully decodable and matched to children's secure phonics knowledge.  As well as fully decodable books, children take home a non-decodable book for sharing that can be either read to or with them. These books play an essential role in developing a love of reading; an important distinction is that these books are being shared with the children, but they are using fully phonically decodable books to practise their independent reading.

For children in Year 2 and above who require additional reading support follow the Little Wandle Rapid Catch Up Programme - a fast, paced intervention designed to build reading fluency quickly and ensure children make rapid progress and close any gaps in their phonetic knowledge. 

Useful links for parents

If you are a parent and would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow this link to find the Reception and Year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.

Little Wandle main website

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

Collins Ebook library link

Collins Ebooks (collinsopenpage.com)

Your child's teacher can provide you with new log-in details if you have mislaid them.