Phonics - Little Wandle
Phonics is a way of teaching children how to read, allowing them to hear, identify and use different sounds that distinguish one word from another. Phonics involves matching the sounds of spoken English with individual letters or groups of letters. Teaching children to blend the sounds of letters together helps them decode unfamiliar or unknown words by sounding them out.
We have chosen to use Little Wandle as our validated SSP. This complete phonics programme draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers. One of the benefits of Little Wandle is their online support for parents. Plenty of information, guidance and videos can be found easily - Resources for parents - Little Wandle
In school, your children will be taught different sounds in a specific order, building their knowledge quickly and effectively. As they learn sounds, they will also be taught to blend these sounds together to begin reading simple words, such as blending c-a-t to read 'cat'. As the children's knowledge progresses, they move into reading more complex words and words within books. The end goal is that all children become fluent, competent readers who can engage with the world around them and love being a reader.
Alongside learning sounds, the children also learn tricky words. These are words that are not phonetically regular and therefore cannot be fully decoded. The children will learn these words by seeing and using them over and over again until they remember them. These means that when they come across them in their reading books, they can continue to read fluently.
Reading books
The children will have two reading books. One will be a sharing book - this is not a decodable book and is for you to share to build a love of reading and stories. The other is their core, decodable book. This book is carefully selected to match their phonetic ability and can be recognised by the Collins Big Cat logo.
The children will not be asked to read any sounds that they do not know - this leads to guessing and doesn't allow them to feel successful or read fluently.
In school, they will read their book a minimum of 3 times. Each read will have a different focus:
1. The first read will focus on decoding - the children using their phonics to segment and blend the words together to create meaning.
2. The second read will focus on prosody - the teaching of fluency, expression and meaning within the book.
3. The third read will focus on comprehension - showing an understanding of the events, characters and information within the book, including answering questions.
They will read the same book at home and in school - this aims to build fluency and allow them to feel really successful. At times, it may feel like the book your child is given is too easy - this is because it is an opportunity to practice what they know, not learn something new.
The books we have are very precious to us - they are expensive and we have a limited amount available for the different levels we need. Therefore, lost or damaged books will be chargeable through Parent Pay.
Supporting at home
There are a number of ways that you can support your child at home with their reading. Firstly, it is really important that you read with your child at home. Without this, they are missing out on vital reading practice and are likely to move far slower through the programme. Additional support with this is available on the Little Wandle website - Books Coming Home
It may be that your child is struggling to learn particular sounds and some repetition at home would be helpful. Your child's class teacher will speak to you about this and how best to do this. The Little Wandle website has a great range of resources available to support you with this, too. This includes support for how to say the sounds and how to blend - Support For Phonics
