Phonics at St Anne's Catholic Primary School
Phonics plays such an important role in the development of early reading. In Years R and 1, we use a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme called Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. All teaching staff are trained to deliver this programme, using resources specifically provide for this rigorous scheme. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised has been developed by Wandle and Little Sutton English Hubs and taken forward by Little Sutton Primary School and Wandle Learning Trust in partnership with other phonics and early reading experts. The SSP draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long-term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.
To learn more about the programme, please see the link below:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/ In addition to this, the programme overview can viewed here.
The resources within the parent section of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised website will help you support your child with the pronunciation of their phonemes (sounds) and writing the associated graphemes (letters). There are also some useful videos so that you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.
The glossary of all of the key terminology can be viewed by clicking here.
In Years R and 1, children have daily phonics sessions during which they learn and practise a clearly sequenced progression of letters and sounds. Their progress is assessed every six weeks. Focussed interventions are used to enable children to keep up and catch up with the pace of the scheme. In June of Year 1, children undertake a Phonics Screening Check to ensure they are secure in Phase 5 Phonics. In Year 2 and thereafter, children move on to learn word spellings and patterns following the National Curriculum.
As part of the Little Wandle programme, children read books with a trained adult three times a week. These books are matched to the child’s phonic understanding, so that they encounter words containing the letters and sounds they are secure with. As the children progress through the programme, the books they encounter will increase in phonic complexity to reflect the range of letters and sounds they have been taught.
Once children have successfully completed the Little Wandle phonics programme, they will read a variety of books that are grouped into ability bands. As their reading skills develop, children progress through the bands before becoming ‘free readers’.