Phonics

Phonics

We take a whole class approach to the teaching of phonics with a focus on achieving age expected phase for all. We follow Little Wandle for Letters and Sounds SSP programme in line with our reading books, which are Little Wandle Big Cat Collins books. All our reading books are in line with children’s phonics levels.

Systematic structured phonics instruction ensures all children are taught keeping up with the ideal trajectory of ‘Little Wandle for Letters and Sounds’ and the pace of learning is appropriately challenging and no children are held back.

Close monitoring and assessments carried out on Phonics tracker inform interventions, highlighting gaps early on ensuring children make accelerated progress.

We are very proud of our consistently high Phonics outcomes, above National average for many years. Little Wandle is in line with our teaching of phonics and has sharpened our focus on matching phonetically decodable books, bringing our reading more in line with our Phonics teaching.

Early Years

Phonics is taught daily in EYFS for 20- 30 minutes. Children learn to say the letters and corresponding sounds and the actions that go with them.  In Early Years we involve parents by sending home the sounds we are teaching weekly in keyrings. Parents are encouraged to practise the sounds at home daily. Each class has a phonics table that has games and activities for children to independently practise segmenting, blending and their knowledge of the alphabetic code. Each EYFS class will have the sounds of the week on show.

Year One

Each class teaches phonics for 30 minutes in Year One. Teachers help children to practise the sounds and ‘tricky’ words daily. Sound buttons are used to highlight the sounds within words and teachers often use these to support children when they are learning writing or marking their books. The sound of the day is on display in each classroom.

All children in Year One will take the Phonics screening in June, to check they know the correct amount of sounds.

Year Two

Year two moves onto Phase 6. This is the teaching of spelling rules. Children will be taught spelling 3 x a week for 20 minutes. Year 2 classrooms show the spelling rule of the week.

Any child who did not pass the Phonics screening test in Year One will re sit the screening in Year 2, in the month of June.