Research shows that a child who reads every day does better at every stage of their education. We see this in school, where the children who read the most, make the most progress. We are very fortunate at our school to have the support of families and community partners who help promote the importance of regular reading.
We are committed to teaching our children to become skilled readers who develop a comprehensive understanding of words, language and texts as they progress through school. We use a range of strategies to develop a love of reading so that children can read for purpose and pleasure
In class 1, children have daily phonics sessions. We follow the Little Wandle programme to support the systematic teaching of phonics. Children begin the programme at the start of Reception and continue throughout Key Stage 1.
Little Wandle is a systematic approach to teaching phonics.
The programme teaches early readers:
- grapheme / phoneme correspondences in a clearly defined sequence
- the skill of blending phonemes in order to read increasingly complex words
- the skill of segmenting words into phonemes to spell increasingly complex words
- that blending and segmenting are reversible processes
- that some common words do not follow the usual patterns and have to be learned “off by heart” in a clearly defined sequence
Lesson Structure
Each lesson follows the same structure:
Revisit and review
- Practise recognition and recall of previously taught sounds
- Practise oral blending and segmentation
Teach and practise
- Teach a new sound
- Teach blending or segmenting with new sound
- Teach new tricky words
Practise and apply
- Practise reading OR spelling words using taught sound. Read or write a caption using high frequency and decodable words.
Recap key learning
Phonics Glossary
We hope the following glossary is useful to you when using our Little Wandle links. Always feel free to come in and talk to us if you require any further support.
- Phonemes
the smallest unit of sound, introduced one at a time - Grapheme
the way we write it down. - Adjacent consonants
Two or more consonants that come together in a word without any intervening vowel or vowels (for example, ‘d-r’ in ‘drop’, ‘s-t-r’ in ‘strap’) - Formation phrase
A memorable phrase used to support the children in forming the letter correctly using directional vocabulary. - Alternative pronunciation
A different way of pronouncing a grapheme. For example, the letters ‘ow’ can represent the sounds /ow/ as in ‘crown’ and /oa/ as in ‘snow’ - Digraph
A grapheme using two letters to represent one phoneme. With children, we frequently reinforce it with the mantra ‘two letters, one sound’ - Split vowel digraph
A digraph representing a vowel sound where its two letters are split by an intervening consonant (for example, ‘a_e’ in ‘take’). - Tri-graph
A grapheme using three letters to represent one phoneme. With children, we frequently reinforce it with the mantra ‘three letters, one sound’ - “Grow the Code”
To systematically and incrementally teach additional GPCs so that the range of words children can read continually extends. - ”Shuffle Time”
To reorder words or sounds to assess children’s understanding - “Chunk it up”
To break up a longer word and read it one part (chunk) at a time, to avoid being overwhelmed and to ease the process of blending - Point and sweep
A technique for reinforcing the process of sounding and blending involving the teacher pointing to each phoneme in a word, in sequence from left to right, and then sweeping a finger below the word, again from left to right, to indicate the blending - Hand behind ear
A prompt to encourage children to repeat a word, phrase or sound
You will find links at the bottom of this page for more information with a selection of resources (word cards, games & record sheets) which you can use to support your child’s learning.
IF YOU REQUIRE ANY FURTHER SUPPORT, PLEASE COME INTO SCHOOL AND SPEAK WITH YOUR CHILD’S CLASS TEACHER.