Phonics
Quotes From Our Student's:
I like phonics because there are lots of sounds to learn.
Leo Year 1
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.”
– Jake, Year 3
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.”
– Jake, Year 3
Phonics – Little Wandle
At Holy Family, we strongly believe that all of our children can become fluent readers and writers. Our new systematic and synthetic phonics programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, is a fully resourced programme to teach early reading and spelling. Children are at an advantage if they are taught phonics efficiently and as early as possible in their learning journey. Therefore, we begin teaching the Foundation of the programme in Nursery. This ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through the school. Phonics is taught daily, the duration of the regular short bursts of direct teaching is dependent on the age and stage of the children. In the daily phonics lessons children are taught 4 new grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPC’s) per week, with a review lesson on a Friday. With regular daily and summative assessment, any child who needs access to extra support will be identified and have access to our ‘keep-up’ sessions tailored to their individual needs. These interventions match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras to avoid cognitive overload. The expectations within Little Wandle are aspirational yet achievable, allowing children to read as quickly as reasonably possible, acquiring the skills to allow them to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.
Early Reading
We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy. At Holy Family, we are committed to teaching our pupils to become skilled readers who develop a comprehensive understanding of words, language and texts. We know that reading has many other benefits to the holistic development of our children. As well as improving knowledge and deepening comprehension, reading develops critical thinking; improves focus and concentration and develops empathy and imagination. Reading underpins children’s access to the curriculum. Children grow their language through reading as they read words they would rarely hear or use in every day language. Children who read regularly also benefit from knowing more about the world.
Children have regular opportunities to apply the phonics they have learned by reading fully decodable books. We use ‘Collins Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ books to ensure that our decodable books are perfectly matched to the Little Wandle programme progression. Children across reception, year 1, year 2 (and beyond where appropriate) apply their phonics knowledge by using a fully matched decodable book in a small, group reading practice session. These sessions are up to 30 minutes long and happen three times a week. The sessions follow the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. The children can then access the eBook of the same title at the end of the week so that they can continue to develop fluency and prosody, and to ensure success is shared with the family.