Phonics and Early Reading at Guildford Grove
Following an update from the DfE around phonics teaching, we have adopted the Little Wandle Phonics programme. Ensuring that your child develops a love of reading is at the heart of our ethos for teaching Phonics and early reading. Whilst fostering this, the Little Wandle programme enables children to make quick progress to become fluent and confident readers.
The Little Wandle programme follows a clear progressive structure. Children have a daily Phonics lesson alongside group reading three times a week. Reading books are carefully matched to each child’s phonic knowledge. There is a comprehensive system in place for identifying and supporting any children requiring additional support.
To best support us in teaching your child how to read we ask that you read the decodable text provided by the school with them at home. In addition, where sound cards and tricky words are sent home, we ask that you also dedicate time to practising these with your child. Spending 10 minutes a day reading with your child will hugely support them in their journey to becoming a confident, fluent and independent reader. Children will bring home a reading book every Friday having already read the text several times at school. Research shows that re-reading texts builds confidence, develops fluency and embeds new vocabulary. In addition to your child’s decodable book, they will also bring home a sharing book/reading for pleasure book at the beginning of the week. These books are for you to enjoy reading with, or to, your child, helping us to instil a love of reading from the very beginning of their reading journey. 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!
At the end of Year 1, it is a Government requirement that all children are expected to take part in a phonics screening check. During this, they will be asked to read a list of 40 words, which will be a mixture of real and pseudo words. Children are required to be able to accurately read 32+ of the words, in order for them to pass the screening check. Those children that are unable to do so will be able to try again at the end of Key Stage 1 in the Year 2 Phonic screening check. The results of the year 1 and year 2 phonic checks are published and reported to parents at the end of the year.
More detailed information about the teaching and learning of Phonics and early reading at Guildford Grove can be found in our ‘Introduction to Phonics and Reading at Guildford Grove’ video presentation.
You can also visit the parent page on the Little Wandle website for lots of useful videos including how to pronounce sounds and how we teach tricky words and blending:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any further questions.
Thank you for your continuing support.
