The Importance of Phonics

Word-reading is one of the essential dimensions of reading; the other is comprehension.  Skilled word-reading involves working out the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and recognising familiar printed words. Underpinning both of these is the understanding that letters represent the sounds in spoken words. Fluent decoding supports pupils’ comprehension, because they don’t have to devote mental energy to individual words.  A good grasp of phonics is also important for spelling, contributing to fluency and confidence in writing. (DfE 2012)

Phonics is the method of teaching reading and writing by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters.  There are 44 sounds in the English language which we put together to form words.  Some sounds are represented by one letter like the 't' in tin, whilst other sounds are represented by two or more letters like 'ck' in duck. 

Children are taught the sounds, how to match them to letters and finally how to use the letter sounds for reading and spelling.

Our phonics and early reading programme is called Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.  It is a complete phonics and early reading teaching programme, which is fully resourced and sets expectations of progression that are aspirational yet achievable. 

Phonics in Nursery

In our Nursery provision we will be preparing them to read by teaching them the ‘Foundations of Phonics’. We use engaging games to teach oral blending and phonemic awareness. We support language development and a love of books through: sharing high-quality stories and poems, learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes, activities that develop focused listening and attention and pay attention to high-quality language with children.

Phonics in Reception and Year 1

Children in Reception and Year 1 continue to have daily phonics lessons. They will be taught 4 new grapheme phoneme correspondences (GPC’s) per week, plus a review lesson on a Friday. Knowing a GPC means being able to match a phoneme (sound) to a grapheme (written representation) and vice versa. The children will also learn a series of ‘tricky words’. Tricky words are those words which cannot be sounded out using their phonemes. We build into the timetable some weeks for the children to consolidate what has been taught so far. We assess your child every 6 weeks to check progress. Any child who needs extra support will have keep-up sessions planned for them.

Year 2

At the beginning of Year 2 the children start with a five-week review of phase 5. Once this is secure, children are ready to move on to the Year 2 Spelling units. The spelling units follow the familiar structure of Little Wandle phonics lessons, supporting children to make links to their phonics learning. The programme provides full coverage of National Curriculum spelling requirements. Any child who needs extra support with their phonics will have keep-up sessions planned for them.

Technical Vocabulary Explained:

• Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound. There are 44 phonemes in English. Phonemes can be put together to make words.

• Grapheme: way of writing down a phoneme. Graphemes can be made up from 1 letter e.g. p, 2 letters e.g. sh, 3 letters e.g. tch or 4 letters e.g ough

• Digraph: a grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme). 

• Trigraph: a grapheme containing three letters that makes just one sound (phoneme).

• GPC: grapheme-phoneme correspondence

• Blending: Looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of GPCs to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word. This is the basis of reading.

• Oral Segmenting: Hearing a whole word and then splitting it up into the phonemes that make it. Children need to develop this skill before they will be able to segment words to spell them.

• Segmenting: Hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes that make it, using knowledge of GPCs to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order. This is the basis of spelling.

Sounds taught during Reception

Sounds taught during Year 1

Sounds taught during Year 2

Little Wandle Parent Guide

The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting their reading at home.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/  

Phonics Screener information for Parents

In Year 1, during the month of June, all children are required to sit the statutory Phonics Screener check. Children will be shown a mixture of real words and alien words, containing a mixture of phase 3 and phase 5 sounds. Your child will be asked to read the word, which they can either sound-out and blend or just read. Children either pass or fail the check. Children who fail the check, are given the opportunity to re-sit the test during the Summer Term of Year 2. Below, is a PowerPoint which explains a bit more about the check.