At Freemantle, we know that reading is an essential life skill and we are committed to delivering a programme of learning that enables children to become lifelong readers. 

Through delivering the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme with rigour and fidelity we intend for pupils to:

🟧 Build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read

🟧 Build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to spell.

🟧 Be equipped to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.

🟧 Read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure.

🟧 See themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose.

We teach a synthetic phonics programme called Little Wandle Letters and Sounds. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression.

Within our nursery, we facilitate a combination of child-led and adult-led experiences that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and Language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:

🟧 sharing high-quality stories and poems

🟧 learning a range of nursery rhymes and action rhymes

🟧 activities that develop focused listening and attention, including oral blending

🟧 explicit teaching of high-quality language and vocabulary.

💭 Our intention is for children to leave our nursery well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception. In summer 1, Nursery transition to use the Little Wandle content to further explore nursery rhymes, listening and attention skills and oral blending skills.

🟧 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.

🟧 In order for children to make a strong start in Reception, teaching begins immediately. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress.

🟧 Over the course of the academic year, 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.

🟧 In Year 1, we teach full-length 30 minute phonics sessions each day. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

🟧Over the course of the academic year, Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

🟧 During phase 5 teaching, children begin using the grow the code chart to help embed the alternative graphemes for previously taught phonemes.

🟧 In Year 2, we teach full-length 30 minute phonics sessions each day, reviewing Phase 5 content in the Autumn term before transitioning to a spelling scheme which covers Year 2 spelling rules in the National Curriculum (2014)In Year 2, we teach full-length 30 minute phonics sessions each day, reviewing Phase 5 content in the Autumn term before transitioning to a spelling scheme which covers Year 2 spelling rules in the National Curriculum (2014).

🟧 We timetable phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children urgently need to catch up. 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. These focused lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week, supplemented by reading sessions to provide further practice opportunity.

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. The 3 sessions focus on:

🟧 decoding

🟧 prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

🟧 comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

These sessions are delivered by a fully trained member of staff to small groups of approximately 6 children. The sessions are delivered using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds planning.

Reading sessions:

🟧 use Big Cat books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids.

🟧 are predominantly delivered by the class teacher or a fully trained member of staff.

🟧 have 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 and comprehension.

🟧 In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.