Children need to learn to read as quickly as reasonably possible, so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. At St George’s we teach phonics and early reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. Synthetic Phonics enables early readers to decode new written words. The children are taught to read letters by saying the sounds they represent and then blending (synthesising) the sounds together to read a whole word.
At St George’s, we start teaching phonics in Nursery and we follow Little Wandle’s progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
In Nursery, we focus on developing an awareness of sound, through activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending. This ensures that children are well prepared to begin grapheme–phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending at the start of Reception. In Reception and Year 1, the children have daily phonics sessions in classes. The children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4). In Year 1, the children are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
All children are given regular opportunities throughout the school day to apply their phonic knowledge. Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support which addresses any gaps that have been identified by the teacher during the phonics session. We also timetable regular phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or above who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check.
Reading Practice Sessions
In addition to phonics, the children receive three reading practice sessions a week. During these sessions, we use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge. Each reading practice session focusses on one of the three key reading skills:
- Decoding
- Prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- Comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
Once these sessions have taken place, the decodable reading practice book is taken home to practise.
Phonic Screening
Year 1 children usually take the phonics screening check in early June. This is designed to give teachers and parents information on how their child is progressing in phonics. It will help to identify whether the child needs additional support so that they do not fall behind in this vital early reading skill. The children in Year 2 who did not achieve the threshold in year 1 will also be assessed.
There are two sections in this 40-word check. The children are required to read a mixture of real and pseudo words. Pseudo words (words that are phonically decodable but they are not real words with an associated meaning) are included in the check specifically to assess whether the child can decode a word using phonics skills and not their memory.
For further information about the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Programme refer to the documents below or go to https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/