At Wouldham, we are committed to the delivery of excellence in the teaching of Phonics. We aim to develop each child so that they can read with fluency as well as instilling a love of reading that will stay with them throughout their lives.
We use Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds, a government accredited systematic, synthetic phonic teaching programme, to teach a daily phonics lesson to children in EYFS and Year 1. In Year 2, phonics provision continues and is taught alongside the discrete teaching of spelling patterns and common exception words.
In EYFS, phonics teaching begins in the Autumn term, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson of 20 minutes as quickly as possible.
We follow the Little Wandle programme expectations:
- Children in EYFS are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
At the end of Year 1 we will complete the Phonics Screening Check. This is a national assessment for all children in Year 1.
Find out more about this assessment by clicking below:
wouldham.kent.sch.uk/content/pages/documents/parent-guide-phonics-check.pdf
Daily Keep up lessons
Any child in EYFS or Year 1 who needs additional practice has daily keep-up support, taught by a fully trained member of staff. 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 makes progress.
Year 2 and Key Stage 2
In their first term in Year 2, the children will continue to have daily phonics lessons.
We will also timetable daily phonics catch-up lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources.
Parent Partnership
Although your child will be taught to read at school, continuing to practise at home will have a huge impact on your child’s reading journey.
Further information about Little Wandle can be found here: littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/