Phonics
Purpose of study
Reading is central to children’s intellectual, emotional and social development. It has an essential role across the wider curriculum and helps pupils’ learning to be coherent and progressive.
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/
Phonics and Early Reading is delivered predominantly through daily phonics sessions, which are planned using the Department for Education approved scheme ‘Little Wandle.’
Our School Vision for Phonics and Early Reading
The teaching of Phonics and Reading at Perryfields Primary School aims to enable children to:
- speak clearly, accurately and confidently in order to express their opinions, articulate feelings and formulate responses.
- be effective, competent communicators and active listeners; making formal presentations, demonstrating to others and participating in democratic debate.
- acquire a wide and ambitious vocabulary.
- foster an interest in words, their etymology and meanings
- develop confidence and become independent readers.
- enjoy, engage and read for pleasure a range of text types and genres.
- appreciate our rich and varied literary heritage and so develop their cultural capital.
- use grammar, punctuation and spelling accurately.
EYFS
Pupils learn:
Reading comes under the ‘Literacy’ area of learning within the Foundation Stage Curriculum. The Early Learning Goals relating to reading for children at the expected level of development are:
- Say a sound for each letter in the alphabet and at least 10 digraphs.
- Read words consistent with their phonic knowledge by sound-blending.
- Read aloud simple sentences and books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge, including some common exception words.
With the ‘Little Wandle’ scheme, pupils are taught a new phoneme every day and are taught how to blend sounds together to read simple words. During phonic sessions, they are also exposed to ‘tricky words’. These words cannot be decoded through their phonic knowledge and need to be learnt by sight.
Key Stage One
Pupils learn to:
During year 1, teachers should build on work from the Early Years Foundation Stage, making sure that pupils can sound and blend unfamiliar printed words quickly and accurately using the phonic knowledge and skills that they have already learnt. Teachers should also ensure that pupils continue to learn new grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and revise and consolidate those learnt earlier. The understanding that the letter(s) on the page represent the sounds in spoken words should underpin pupils’ reading and spelling of all words. This includes common words containing unusual GPCs. The term ‘common exception words’ is used throughout the programmes of study for such words.
Alongside this knowledge of GPCs, pupils need to develop the skill of blending the sounds into words for reading and establish the habit of applying this skill whenever they encounter new words. This will be supported by practice in reading books consistent with their developing phonic knowledge and skill and their knowledge of common exception words. At the same time they will need to hear, share and discuss a wide range of high-quality books to develop a love of reading and broaden their vocabulary.
Pupils should be helped to read words without overt sounding and blending after a few encounters. Those who are slow to develop this skill should have extra practice. By the beginning of year 2, pupils should be able to read all common graphemes. They should be able to read unfamiliar words containing these graphemes, accurately and without undue hesitation, by sounding them out in books that are matched closely to each pupil’s level of word reading knowledge. They should also be able to read many common words containing GPCs taught so far [for example, shout, hand, stop, or dream], without needing to blend the sounds out loud first. Pupils’ reading of common exception words [for example, you, could, many, or people], should be secure. Pupils will increase their fluency by being able to read these words easily and automatically. Finally, pupils should be able to retell some familiar stories that have been read to and discussed with them or that they have acted out during year 1.
During year 2, teachers should continue to focus on establishing pupils’ accurate and speedy word reading skills. They should also make sure that pupils listen to and discuss a wide range of stories, poems, plays and information books; this should include whole books. The sooner that pupils can read well and do so frequently, the sooner they will be able to increase their vocabulary, comprehension and their knowledge across the wider curriculum.
Key Stage Two
Pupils learn to:
By the beginning of year 3, most pupils will have completed the ‘Little Wandle’ synthetic phonics scheme.
At Key Stage Two, Phonics will only be taught in catch-up sessions for those children who have specific needs or are new to English. This will be delivered through the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-Up Programme by specially trained staff.
How we achieve this
Preparing staff for, and helping them to implement all National Curriculum recommendations through Continual Professional Development.
Promoting a dynamic approach to the development of reading within and beyond the curriculum.
Exposing our children to a range of reading materials which reflect our modern society.
Building the confidence of children to be resilient readers who can use reading as a tool to unlock other information across the curriculum.
Additional Offer – Developing a Lifelong Love of Reading
Our phonics provision is enhanced in several ways.
- Children are routinely sent home reading books which embed and enhance the phonics provision.
- Phonics workshops are delivered to parents to share expectations and offer support and guidance in how to help their child flourish.
- Across all our learners, groups and individuals falling behind the pace of the programme are quickly identified using Little Wandle ‘Identifying children for Keep Up’ support materials, and appropriate additional intervention is provided. These groups and individuals are monitored through Provision Map, an internet-based secure portal where additional sessions for individuals and groups are tracked, evaluated and monitored by the Inclusion Manager and the Senior Leadership Team.
Website links to support Reading
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/ The Little Wandle Phonics website
https://literacytrust.org.uk/free-resources/ National Literacy Trust
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/reading-owl/find-a-book/library-page Oxford Owl Free primary on-line e-library.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1007446/6.7534_DfE_Development_Matters_Report_and_illustrations_web__2_.pdf Development Matters – Non-statutory curriculum guidance for the early years foundation stage (publishing.service.gov.uk) The Development Matters EYFS Framework.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-english-programmes-of-study National curriculum in England: English programmes of study – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The KS1 and KS2 National curriculum in England: English programmes of study.
Curriculum Info