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Lons Infant School
Learning, Opportunities, Nurturing, Success
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Phonics
At Lons Infant School we use the government validated systematic synthetic programme called Little Wandle Phonics scheme. The Programme is designed to teach children to read from Reception to Year 2, using the skill of decoding and blending sounds together to form words. The little Wandle programme provides a full progression through all commonly occurring GPCs (sounds) working from simple to more complex, and taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words.
At Lons Infant School, we are passionate about ensuring all children become confident and enthusiastic readers and writers, and we believe that Phonics provides the foundation in supporting children to develop these skills in order for this to become achievable.
The teaching of phonics is fast-paced, and we encourage all children to actively participate in each lesson and by encouraging the children to take ownership of their learning we are continuously striving for excellence.
At Lons Infant School we aim to ensure that we provide all children with fundamental skills that will enable them to be confident and fluent readers. We believe that reading and writing is an essential life skill and we are dedicated to enabling our children to become enthused, engaged and successful lifelong readers and writers.
Daily Phonic lessons in Reception and Year 1
We teach phonics for up to 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. Each Friday we review the week's teaching to help children become fluent readers.
Children make a strong start in reception: teaching begins in week 2 of the Autumn Term.
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 Year 1 preview phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
Daily phonics lessons in year 2
In the Autumn term we teach phonics for up to 30 minutes a day with an emphasis on revising Phase 5 from year 1 summer term planning.
Keep up lessons ensure that every child learns to read
Any child who needs additional practice has regular keep-up support, led by a fully trained adult. Keep up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition so that every child secures their learning.
We use the little Wandle assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the keep up resources at pace.
Teaching Reading
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 and 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
- prosody - teaching children to read with understanding and expression
- comprehension - teaching children to understand the text
In reception these sessions start in week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily blending practice in small groups so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.
Ensuring consistency
All staff ay Lons Infant School have been trained to teach reading. This is to ensure that we have the same expectations. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children's cognitive load.
Why learning to read is so important
- Reading is essential for all subject areas and improves life chances
- positive attitudes to reading and choosing to read have academic, social and emotional benefits for children.
How children learn to read
- Phonics is the only route to decoding
- learning to say the phonic sounds
- by blending phonic sounds to read words
- increasing the child's fluency in reading sounds, words and books
Reading fully decodable books
- children must read books consistent with their phonic knowledge
- it is essential not to use other strategies to work out words (including guessing words, deducing meaning from pictures, grammar, context clues or whole word recognition
- books must be fully decodable and follow the Little Wandle Scheme
- children need to read books in a progressive sequence until they can decode unfamiliar words confidently
The role of parents and carers
- have a positive impact on their child's reading
- should model the importance of reading practice to develop fluency
- children take home books they have read at school to re-read at home to build fluency
- there are two different types of books that pupils bring home, reading practice and books to share for pleasure
- reading at home encourages a love of books, along with developing vocabulary and discussion
- parents should use voices, expression, discuss unfamiliar vocabulary, talk about the pictures and predict what might happen next
- give positive yet informative feedback in the home reading diary at least 3 times a week
Supporting your child with reading
Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home.
There are two types of reading book that your child may bring home:
A reading practice book
This will be at the correct phonic stage for your child. They should be able to read this fluently and independently.
A sharing book.
Your child will not be able to read this on their own. This book is for you both to read and enjoy together.
Reading practice book
This book has been carefully matched to your child's current reading level. If your child is reading it with little, please don't worry that its 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.
Sharing book
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!
"The more you read, the more you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go."
Programme Overview Reception and year 1
Please access the Little Wandle website (link below) to find more information. The 'For Parents' section provides videos of how to pronounce the phase 2 and phase 3 sounds and how we teach the reading of words.