Little Wandle phonics
At Little Reddings Primary School, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP).
This is a fully comprehensive programme where children start learning single letter sounds in the autumn term of their Reception year and it builds in progression throughout Reception and Year One, preparing children for the statutory phonics screening that takes place at the end of year 1. Children in Year 2 work on developing their knowledge of the different graphemes to aid with reading and spelling.
If there are children in Year 3 and above that need to keep developing their phonics skills, they will continue with Little Wandle, using the Rapid Catch up programme.
Phonics is taught everyday and children learn to apply their phonics skills in reading practise sessions 3 times a week, developing their fluency and comprehension skills along the way.
Here is the link to the ‘For Parents’ section of the Little Wandle website. https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their phonemes (sounds) handwriting their graphemes (letters). There are also useful videos so you can see how your child is taught at school, to be able to confidently support their reading at home.
Reading Practice book
This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading.
Listen to them read the book. Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success! If they can’t read a word, read it to them. After they have finished, talk about the book together.
Sharingbook
In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together.
Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them.Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a non-fiction book.The main thing is that you have fun!
When pupils have finished Little Wandle, reading is developed through an approach called ‘Book Talk’. This focuses on the key skills of reading and is underpinned by the ‘Reading Rainbow’ – a tiered series of lenses which represent the different competencies of reading as set out in the National Curriculum.
Pupils read for thirty minutes every day, in ability groups, and are exposed to a range of narrative, non-fiction and poetry genres. Over the course of a fortnight, every child will read intensively with an adult. This allows the Teacher or Teaching Assistant to make accurate assessments of pupils’ reading abilities.
A hallmark of the Book Talk approach is developing reading for meaning and oral comprehension. Adults encourage the use of ambitious, ‘high-utility’ vocabulary to support children in developing extended, oral responses to texts. This is supported by additional comprehension lessons as part of the two-week cycle, some of which are directly modelled by the teacher and others which are completed independently.
To encourage pupils to develop a love of reading and support our reading culture in school, every class listens to a text being read aloud by an adult for ten minutes each day. This is usually a longer picture book or novel which enables pupils to follow an extended plotline and see how writers develop characters as stories progress. During the ten minutes of daily reading, adults ‘zoom-in’ on words, phrases and sentences and ‘wring them for meaning’ so that pupils see clearly how to think like a reader.
The objectives for reading and accompanying reading lenses can be found in the Progression of Skills document below.