Reading and Phonics

We use the systematic Little Wandle Letters and Sounds program for our phonics teaching. Little Wandle Starts in Reception and into Year 2, where children move from phonics to spelling.  Some children will continue to have some specific phonics teaching from Year 2 upwards. 

As part of the Little Wandle programme, phonic books are closely matched to children’s increasing knowledge of phonics and ‘tricky’ words and, as children re-read the stories, their fluency increases. Along with this, prompts for thinking out loud and discussion, children are helped to read with a storyteller’s voice. To help secure a successful transition into Year 2, Little Wandle is used for the first half term instead of Whole Class Guided Reading. Once children’s knowledge is secure, class teaching moves towards a mix of small group and whole class guided reading. 

Each class has at least four whole class guided reading sessions per week. The purpose of them is to improve vocabulary comprehension and application, explicitly teach reading strategies and widen background knowledge. Sessions are based on both the class novel and alternate texts. Subject specific strategies linked to content domains including retrieval, inference, prediction and summarisation are taught as both stand-alone lessons and in combination with each other.