Phonics
The Teaching of Early Reading at North Ferriby
At North Ferriby School we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach early reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
For children who are accessing the Early Reading Curriculum, the reading scheme we use is Collins Big Cat. For children who have completed the Early Reading Curriculum, we have Oxford Reading Tree, Pearson and Ginn Books as well as wider reading from the library.
Intent
At North Ferriby School we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach early reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At North Ferriby School, 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. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
As children move beyond the Early Reading curriculum, reading remains a high priority across the school where a love of reading is encouraged and fluency, prosody and comprehension continue to be taught.
Comprehension
At North Ferriby School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.
Because we believe teaching every child to read is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.
Comprehension skills are taught throughout the school with a focus on the reading domains in each session where the comprehension skills are taught directly. Texts are selected carefully to ensure that they are suitably challenging with interesting and ambitious vocabulary.
Implementation
Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1
- We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to the full-length lesson as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
- Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term.
- We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:
- Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
- Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
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.
- We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace.
- If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week.
Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week in Foundation Stage and Year 1
- We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
- are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
- use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’
- are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.
- Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
- decoding
- prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
- In Reception these sessions start in Week 3. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
- In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
Comprehension Skills
As the children move beyond early reading, reading remains a high priority at North Ferriby School. Comprehension skills are taught explicitly in all classes, through comprehension lessons where the reading domains are a focus of each session. High quality texts, with ambitious vocabulary are chosen in order to develop children’s comprehension skills.
Home reading
- For the children in Reception in Year 1 and children in older classes who continue to access the Little Wandle scheme, the decodable reading practice book is taken home in the form of an eBook, to ensure success is shared with the family.
- For children who are able to fully decode all sounds, a reading scheme book is sent home for children to practise their reading.
- Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
- We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.
Additional reading support for vulnerable children
- Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book to an adult daily.
Ensuring consistency and pace of progress
- Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load.
- Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.
- Lesson templates, Prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson.
- The Reading Leader and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and gaps in learning.
How can we help at home!
You can help your child by following these key points:
- Make sure that your child brings their LW Storybook into school every day!
- Practice the sounds they know at home.
- Listen to your child read, both their LW storybook and Book Bag Book, every day.
- Read to them and always discuss the story you are reading to try to build your child’s comprehension skills, inference and understanding.
- Talk to them! The most important thing you can do is to talk to your child and listen to them when they are talking to you. Try to extend their vocabulary range and their skill at talking in increasingly more complex sentences. For example, try to teach them alternative words for ideas, or nouns they already know. Can they think of adjectives to describe things (nouns).
Look out for our LW Workshops, where you can find out about how we teach phonics at North Ferriby, so that you are best placed to support your child’s reading journey.
If you need further advice or help with how best to help, please contact the LW Leaders (Mrs Adamson or Mrs Fox) who will be happy to meet with you.
Little Wandle Resources for Parents
Please find below a range of useful resources to support with phonics. at home.
