Kentisbeare C of E Primary School

Implementation

Children have discrete, daily phonics teaching following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression. Teachers draw upon observations and continuous assessment to ensure children are challenged and to identify children who may need additional support.

Foundations for phonics in Pre-School

• We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:
  • sharing high-quality stories and poems
  • learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes
  • activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending
  • attention to high-quality language.

• We ensure pre-school children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
• Little Wandle Foundations is aligned to the non-statutory guidance on Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters as well as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. We use it as part of our wider provision for Communication and Language, and Literacy. It supports children to:
  • develop their phonological awareness, including rhyme, alliteration, syllables, initial and voice sounds, and oral blending
  • love stories and rhymes, and learn by heart a bank of familiar favourites
  • increase their vocabulary and confidence to talk
  • improve their listening and ability to take part in back-and-forth conversations.
• We believe that the priority in pre-school should be to build the foundations for phonics for all children.

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics each morning 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. Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in Week 3 of the Autumn term.
• Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• The teaching of whole-class phonics is delivered using grapheme/phoneme correspondence (GPC) flashcards and word cards, as well as the interactive whiteboard, for review teaching and sentence level work. 
• Little Wandle phonics lessons will be tailored to ensure that every child’s phonics needs are met within whole-class teaching.
  • Word and sentence level work may be adapted to both support and challenge individual learners.
  • Additional adults will be used to support individuals and/or groups of learners.
• 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 Reception are taught Phase 2, 3 and 4 tricky words.
  • Children in Year 1 review Phase 2, 3 and 4 phonemes and tricky words.
  • Children in Year 1 are taught Phase 5 tricky words and to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. 

Daily phonics and spelling in Year 2

Phonics does not end with the Phonics Screening Check, or even at the end of Year 1, but rather when all children have mastered the alphabetic code. Phonics teaching in Year 2 will depend on their final Year One assessments.  

• Year 2 begins by using assessment to ensure that children have completed the Little Wandle Year 1 progression. Any gaps in teaching are addressed through daily phonics lessons until the programme is completed. Corresponding summative assessments are carried out to ensure this content is secure.
• Once all Year 1 content has been taught and assessed, we teach a five-week Phase 5 review. This ensures that children secure the trickier elements of Phase 5 and can apply this alphabetic knowledge in both reading and spelling.
• We use the Phase 5 review assessment before teaching in Year 2 to identify any children who may need more support when teaching. We reassess after teaching the Phase 5 review.
• Once the Phase 5 review is secure, we teach the Bridge to spelling before moving to the Spelling units.
• Children with larger gaps in their phonic knowledge than their peers have daily phonics teaching and follow the Rapid Catch-up programme.

SEND Programme

Little Wandle SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) is a complete programme that mirrors the main Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised phonics programme but with adaptations and support in place that make it possible for schools, special schools and providers to meet the needs of all their learners.

This SEND programme provides a carefully structured and highly supportive pathway for pupils who need a more personalised approach to learning phonics. It follows the same systematic progression as the main programme but breaks learning into smaller, achievable steps, with lots of repetition and overlearning to secure understanding. Lessons are multisensory, practical and designed to build confidence, ensuring that children with a range of additional needs can access high-quality phonics teaching at their own pace.

Many children who have SEND would benefit from this adapted programme and will be taught and assessed using the Little Wandle SEND programme.

Daily Keep-up lessons

Reception and Year One

• Any child in Reception and Year 1 who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult.
• Daily Keep-up lessons follow the Little Wandle progression and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition so that every child secures their learning.
• In some cases, certain children may require even more individual/smaller group support and teaching, therefore their needs may be best met solely through daily keep-up. 

Children in Year 2 to Year 6: Rapid Catch-Up 

• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not at age-related expectations for 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.
• These short, sharp lessons last 15 to 20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.
• We assess children who are new to our school, new to the country or new to English using the Rapid Catch-up assessments to quickly identify their needs.
• We use the Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in children’s phonic knowledge and teach these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.
• We assess children every four weeks using the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching.

Reading practice sessions

• 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.
  • use books that children are able to read with 90% fluency (for those with SEND this will be on an individual basis and will be decided by the class teacher and SENDCo)
  • 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: segmenting and blending for reading.
  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
• In Reception, these sessions start in week 4 of teaching at the latest. Initially, children will read wordless books. In these sessions, children review GPCs and are taught blending using teacher-led blending. Once children can blend, they progress onto decodable books matched to their secure phonic knowledge.
• Children read each book three times to develop phonemic awareness, vocabulary and comprehension as well as book behaviours.
• In Year 2, we ensure children complete reading the core programme decodable books (up to Phase 5 Set 5). To exit the programme, we complete the final fluency assessment to ensure children can read with adequate speed and accuracy: approximately 60 words per minute with 90%+ accuracy.
• Reading in Rapid Catch-up lessons mirrors the core programme. Children following the Rapid Catch-up programme are taught to read using the same practice read sessions and fully decodable books.

Ensuring reading for pleasure

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)

Reading for pleasure is a key focus, as we encourage children to discover the joy and excitement of books. Through a carefully chosen selection of age-appropriate stories, poems, and informational texts, students are introduced to a wide range of genres and authors. We believe that fostering a love of reading helps to build essential literacy skills while also sparking imagination and creativity. By providing a nurturing environment where children can explore books at their own pace, we aim to inspire a lifelong love of reading that extends beyond the classroom and into their everyday lives.

We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

• We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Kentisbeare Primary School and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures.
• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.
• Books within classroom libraries are often linked to our curriculum areas of learning.
• In Reception and Year One, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
• Children from Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
• As the children progress through the school, they are encouraged to write their own comments and keep a list of the books/authors that they have read.
• All children are able to access the school and class library and choose a book to take home and share weekly.
• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. Children across the school have opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (library visits and talks etc).