Phonics

 Phonics approach

 

At Monkwick Infant and Nursery school  we believe that all of our children can become fluent readers and writers and we are committed to ensuring that this is achieved for all of our children regardless of any barriers that they may have to their learning. This is why we have chosen to adopt Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic synthetic phonics programme.

The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme begins in the earliest years with the Foundations for Phonics programme, which we deliver to our Cubs Nursery children. This ensures that our children are well prepared to begin to learn grapheme-phoneme correspondences and blending to read in Reception and Year 1, where they will follow the Little Wandle letters and sounds revised progression which is designed to ensure that all children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

At Monkwick Infant and Nursery school we understand that being able to read is the most crucial skill that we can teach our children as without it they will find it increasingly difficult to access other areas of the curriculum and their life chances will be significantly reduced. The Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme is designed to ensure that no child is left behind and where teachers think that this may be the case, children will be supported with Little Wandle’s daily keep up or catch up in Reception and Year 1, or Rapid Catch up in Year 2. In addition to our daily phonics lessons, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. This runs alongside our strong focus on language development in all year groups, as we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Little Wandle is the only scheme used throughout school as we know that a consistent approach lowers cognitive load and gives our children the best chance of success. Every adult within the school is trained to deliver Little Wandle phonics and reading to ensure that phonics and reading are delivered in the same way in every year group and by every adult. This includes all adults using the same language, the same routines and the same resources. Weekly content grids, lesson templates and ‘How to’ videos all help to ensure that all adults maintain consistency in their teaching and this is monitored half termly by the Reading Leader and SLT so that any misconceptions or inconsistencies can be rectified as soon as possible.

Overview of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised at Monkwick Infant and Nursery School 

Nursery	Reception	Year 1	YEAR	SEND
Foundations for Phonics	Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised – Daily Keep Up – Group Catch Up	Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised – Daily Keep Up – Group Catch Up	Rapid Catch Up   Phase 5 review    Bridge to spelling	Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised (Appropriate pathway)
Nursery Rhyme of the week	Small group reading 4 times per week	Small group reading 4 times per week	Small group reading 4 times per week	Small group reading as appropriate

Foundations for phonics in our Nursery Cubs class

Foundations for phonics is started with our youngest children in the Nursery. Sessions take place daily with a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences supporting all children in meeting the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Literacy’. These may include:

• sharing high-quality stories and poems

• learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes

• activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending

• attention to high-quality language.

By the end of Nursery, children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.

Reception

Children start phase 2 of the Little Wandle phonics programme as soon as possible after starting Reception, usually week 2 of the Autumn term when children are settled in their new surroundings. Phase 2 teaches children the first 32 phonemes (36 graphemes) and follows a carefully sequenced progression so that children are able to start to read and write as soon as reasonably possible.

Phonics is delivered every day in Reception so that children have plenty of opportunities to revisit, practice and apply their phonic knowledge. Repeated practice is also provided in morning tasks and within the provision in the classroom. It is very important that children learn to pronounce the phonemes correctly. Where children pronounce the phonemes incorrectly or use letter names, they will not be able to successfully blend to read words.

Year 1

Children in Year 1 continue to follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. They learn how to ‘grow the code,’ learning that there are different ways to represent the different phonemes that they learnt in Reception. By the end of Year 1, children will have been taught all of the phonemes and graphemes in the English language and should be able to decode and read any word. They should be reading age appropriate texts with confidence and fluency. Our aim is for children to have completed the Little Wandle programme by the end of Year 1.

 

SEND

At Monkwick Infant and Nursery School, it is our aim that every child will learn to read, no matter what barriers they may have to their learning. Children with special educational needs follow the Little Wandle Phonics programme as outlined above. This may, however, be personalised depending on individual learning needs. Please speak to a member of staff if you require more information about how we deliver the Little Wandle programme to children with SEND.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. 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 secures their learning.