Phonics and Reading

How we teach Phonics

At Broadwood Primary School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school.

This approach builds children's speaking and listening skills in their own right, as well as prepare children for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. The aim is that children become fluent readers by the age of seven.

However, phonics interventions are embedded across the whole school, including Key Stage 2 to enable all children to secure learning gaps in phonics.

There are 5 phases altogether and ideally, children would be taught at the age appropriate phase.

Please see the attached progression document below for more detailed information on the 5 phases.

Reading Policy

Programme Progression Overview Reception and Year 1.

Little Wandle in Reception and Key Stage 1

We teach phonics 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. 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.
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 year 1 will recap Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

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Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.

Assessment for learning is used:

daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.

Summative assessment is used:

every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
by SLT through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit a Phonics Screening Check in the Summer term. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for catch-up

Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through their teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as through the half-termly Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised summative assessments.

Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught 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 timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at 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. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Keep-up resources – at pace.
If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps.

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times per 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
are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with groups 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.

Pronunciation and Formation - Phase 2a

Pronunciation and Formation - Phase 2b

Pronunciation and Formation Phase 3

A presentation for our parents

Broadwood Road, Denton Burn, Tyne and Wear, NE15 7TB 0191 2741684 office@broadwoodprimary.co.uk