Phonics and Early Reading
At Buxted CE Primary School, we are committed to teaching our children to become skilled, confident readers who develop a comprehensive understanding of words, language, different texts and a love of reading. We believe that for all our pupils to become fluent readers and writers, phonics must be taught through a systematic and structured phonics programme.
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds
Our progressive, consistent approach to phonics, led by trained, skilled staff, ensures that children are given the best possible foundation for reading, writing and language skills.
Learning to read
Our phonics teaching starts in our reception class and follows a very specific sequence that allows our children to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through school. As a result, our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover.
Our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable; children who are not keeping up with their peers are given additional practice through keep-up sessions.
Children across reception and year 1 (and beyond if appropriate) apply their phonic skills and understanding by using a fully decodable reading book, matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge, in a small group reading practice session.
- These sessions are 15 minutes long and happen three times a week. There are approximately 6 children in a group.
- The sessions follow the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised where each reading session has a specific reading focus.
As well as their fully decodable book, children take home a non-decodable book for sharing that can be either read to or with them. These books play an essential role in developing a love of reading; an important distinction is that these books are being shared with the children, but they are using fully phonically decodable books to practise their independent reading.
On-going assessment of children's progress takes place daily as well as a review session at the end of each week. Pupils are also assessed at the end of a six-week block using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker.
Children in year 1 also complete the statutory Phonics Screening Check in the summer term.
Our phonics teaching starts in our reception class and follows a very specific sequence that allows our children to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through school. As a result, our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words that they might discover.
Our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable; children who are not keeping up with their peers are given additional practice through keep-up sessions.
Children across reception and year 1 (and beyond if appropriate) apply their phonic skills and understanding by using a fully decodable reading book, matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge, in a small group reading practice session.
- These sessions are 15 minutes long and happen three times a week. There are approximately 6 children in a group.
- The sessions follow the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised where each reading session has a specific reading focus.
As well as their fully decodable book, children take home a non-decodable book for sharing that can be either read to or with them. These books play an essential role in developing a love of reading; an important distinction is that these books are being shared with the children, but they are using fully phonically decodable books to practise their independent reading.
Supporting your child
If you are a parent and would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow this link to find the reception and year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.
Read more: Resources for parents
Year 1 Phonics Screening Check
The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is an assessment to confirm whether pupils have learnt their letter sounds and whether they can use them to decode and read a range of words of increasing phonic complexity.
It is a compulsory requirement that all schools carry out the check.
Class teachers will conduct the phonic check with each Year 1 child in their class on a 1:1 basis in the summer term.
WHICH WORDS WILL ‘THE CHECK’ CONTAIN?
The check will contain a mixture of real words (dark, phone, stripe, starling, turnip, picture) and non-words or pseudo words (usk, bamph, stort, straip, blurst).
There will be forty words in total. The pass mark changes each year. Last year they needed to score 32 or more out of 40 to ‘pass’.
HOW WILL I FIND OUT THE RESULTS OF ‘THE CHECK’?
If the results are known in time, they will be in your child’s end of year report, if not a separate notification will be sent.
If your child does not pass, during Year 2 they will continue to be supported through targeted interventions. They then re-sit the check at the end of Year 2.
HOW CAN I HELP MY CHILD AT HOME?
How can you help at home?
- Homework - Please spend time learning spellings, reading and practising the sounds.
- When reading with your child, encourage them to work out words they do not know by using their sound knowledge to blend words together.
- If for example the word has an alternative pronunciation, ask them to read to the end of the sentence to see if they can work out the word from the context
- Try not to blend and segment for them.
Don’t forget…
Learning to read should be fun for both children and parents.
Games to develop phonic awareness
Reading in Year 2
Year 2 Follow on from Little Wandle
In year 2, children who did not pass the phonics screen in year 1 will receive tailored catch up intervention from September. In September year 2, children who will retake the phonics screen are assessed using the Little Wandle Placement Assessment. From this, catch up sessions are planned.
Content for the catch up sessions is taken from the Little Wandle catch up session planning.
Children are assessed every 6 weeks to check learning and progress. This continues unless children have made up all their gaps and do not need any further intervention. These children are then monitored and assessed in term 4 using the Phonics Tracker mock screening check. Results from this inform term 4 and 5 planning.
In term 6 children who did not pass the phonics screening check in year 1 will be retested.
Pupils in year 2 continue to read Big Cat Little Wandle books, following on from the phase they were at in year 1.
Children who finish Big Cat Little Wandle Phase 5 books progress onto Big Cat gold or white books. Once children are securely on Big Cat white, and at the teacher’s discretion, they will take the Accelerated Reader baseline assessment to check if they are ready to access the Accelerated Reader Programme and scaled books from the library. Those who are not ready, remain on Big Cat white.