Phonics and Early Reading
Learning to read is one of the most important things your child will learn at our school. Everything else depends on it, therefore we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible.
We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we work hard to make sure children develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read.
We start by teaching phonics in Reception following the Little Wandle for Letters and Sounds Revised scheme. This is delivered through discreet daily phonics lessons. Continuous provision, and the outdoor learning environment in EYFS, is carefully planned to support and consolidate the children’s phonic knowledge.
Once children can blend sounds together to read words, through guided reading sessions 3 times per week, children practise reading books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ that they know. During this stage in their development, children start to believe that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.
Children in Year 1 and some children in Year 2 also have access to high quality daily phonics sessions which last for between 20-30 minutes (again, using the Little Wandle for Letters and Sounds Revised scheme). Children are taught in their class groups with careful assessment and monitoring, to ensure that all children reach their full potential. All children who need additional practice, have daily 'keep-up' support, taught by a fully-trained adult.
In whole class reading sessions, your child will experience a range of text types, carefully chosen for their challenging vocabulary. The teacher will model a range of teaching strategies and give the opportunity for plenty of talk about books.
For more information on our Phonics scheme, please follow this link to the parent area of the Little Wandle website:http:// https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/