Phonics
At Wykeham and Hackness Church of England Schools, we believe that the ability to read underpins all learning and allows children to access new experiences, perspectives and opportunities. Reading is a skill for life and high quality phonics teaching secures word recognition and decoding skills so that children can become fluent, independent readers.
Little Wandle is our chosen phonics scheme because it is ambitious and aligns with our 'Keep up, not catch up' philosophy, meaning that all children are supported to become confident, fluent readers. We start teaching Phonics in Reception and follow Little Wandle's programme which ensures children build on their developing understanding of the phonemic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.
Children are taught to:
- decode (read) by identifying grapheme-phoneme correspondences within words and blending them to read fluently
- encode (write) by segmenting words into their component sounds to write with accuracy
The structure of Little Wandle lessons means that children know what is coming next within a lesson, what is expected of them and how to achieve success.
Phonics is taught explicitly to individual year groups (Reception and Year 1) during a dedicated slot on the timetable. The teacher uses formative assessment within the lesson to identify any children who may need additional practice of new learning and delivers this intervention on the same day. Where further support is required, 1:1 interventions are used where needed. These interventions are short, specific and effective to ensure gaps are closed quickly.
Throughout the day, children are given opportunities to use their phonic knowledge across the curriculum and have many opportunities to practise reading. This includes reading practice sessions, using phonically-matched decodable books and led by a trained member of staff. Reading practice sessions allow children to apply their decoding skills, broaden their knowledge of vocabulary and develop comprehension skills.
Explicit phonics instruction typically finishes in the Autumn term of Year 2, when children will move to reading fluency books alongside rich, high-quality texts in whole class reading.
Year 1 phonics screen
At the end of Year 1, children participate in the statutory Phonics screening check. This check takes place in June. For more information, please speak to Miss Taylor.
Supporting at home
Every Autumn, we invite parents to attend our phonics workshop to learn more about what phonics is, why we use phonics and how we teach phonics. If you are unable to attend this workshop, please speak to the school office who will be happy to share the resources from the workshop.
The Little Wandle website contains useful information demonstrating the progression of GPCs, how to correctly enunciate phonemes and some example videos of how children are taught to decode words.
Children will receive reading books that are closely matched to their current phonic knowledge and which they have practised with an adult in school. Regular reading practice is essential to help your child to make rapid progress in phonics, so we ask that children read aloud at home to an adult or older sibling at least four times a week. Re-reading a text enables children to develop fluency so that they become able to better understand what they have read.