Phonics

How will my child learn to read?

Little Wandle

At Shirestone Academy we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Through phonics children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. The teaching of phonics is of high priority.

Intent

At Shirestone Academy we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers. We believe that phonics provides the foundations of learning to make the development into fluent reading and writing easier. Through phonics children learn to segment words to support their spelling ability and blend sounds to read words. The teaching of phonics is of high priority

Implementation

At Shirestone Academy we use the complete systematic synthetic phonics programme ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’. This programme is based on the original Letters and Sounds document, but has been extensively revised to provide a complete teaching programme meeting all the expectations of the National Curriculum, the Ofsted Deep Dive into reading, and prepares children to go beyond the expectations of the phonics screening check. This allows our phonics teaching and learning to be progressive from our Nursery up to Year 2 and beyond. Children in our Nursery are introduced to Phase 1 phonics, which concentrates on developing speaking and listening skills and lays the foundations for the phonic work which starts in Phase 2. As children move into Reception, they continue to build on their listening skills and are introduced to Phase 2 which marks the start of systematic phonics work and work through to the end of Phase 4. In Year 1 the children cover Phase 5 sounds and alternate sounds and also practise pseudowords in preparation for the phonics screening check.

Every day the children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have discrete, daily phonics sessions where they revise previous learning; are taught new graphemes/phonemes; practise together and apply what they have learnt. Children progress through the stages at the expected rate and catch-up intervention is provided for any children who need it.

Children are assessed at least half termly and placed in reading groups according to their reading level. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 take part in reading sessions 4 times a week.

Impact

Through the teaching of systematic phonics, our aim is for children to become fluent readers by the end of Key Stage 1. Children can then focus on developing fluency and comprehension throughout the school. Attainment in phonics is measured by the Phonics Screening Test at the end of Year 1. Children who do not pass their phonics screening are then assessed on a regular basis across Year 2 and Key Stage 2, until they become fluent.