Phonics:
At Shotely Bridge 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 DfE approved systematic synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Preschool with our Foundations for Phonics lessons which prepare children for their full phonics curriculum in Reception. We 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.
Phonics is taught daily for children working at Phases 1 – 5, and from Phase 2, these children have an additional 3 reading practice sessions per week, to help build fluency in decoding. The books the children read will be part of the Big Cats for Little Wandle scheme and will be fully decodable, including only the sounds that the children have learned. These books will also be sent home using Collins Hub eBooks which are identical to the books read in school.
All teaching staff, teaching assistants and senior leaders at Shotley Bridge Primary School have been fully trained in the delivery of Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.
When doing phonics homework with your children it is important to use ‘pure sounds’ these are demonstrated in the videos below.
As children learn new phonems (sounds) they are taught to blend phonemes together to make words. This is an important skill for reading and can be done orrally (without looking at written text) to build these skills. A video to show how we teach blending in school can be viewed below. The children also learn to sight read a number of words, which we call ‘tricky words’. These are words which do not follow the phonic patterns that the children have previously been taught (they may cover them later) but that are commonly used in the English language and vital for fluent reading. Find out more below.
Early Reading:
Reading is a vital life skill that supports children’s learning across the whole curriculum. We strive to ensure that the children are taught to read with fluency, accuracy and understanding. We immerse children in quality texts with the aim to instil a love of reading and promote lifelong readers.
Whilst learning phonics, each child will be taught to read in a small group led by a trained teacher or teaching assistant three times a week. During each session, the children will read the same book three times focusing on a different focus each session. Teachers use assessment to match each child to the correct book so that each child is reading at the right level, matched to the phonics they are secure in. In the first of the weekly sessions, the reading focus will be decoding. The second session will focus on developing prosody (reading with expression). The final session will focus on comprehension.
We ask for all children to read their phonics practice book at home a minimum of three times a week in addition to sharing their library book to develop a love for reading. For advice around reading at home, including using wordless books please see the link below.
For parents | Letters and Sounds