At Monkton Infants School, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds systematic synthetic phonics programme to teach Early Reading. From Reception, children take part in daily phonic sessions in a whole class or as part of a group.
In Nursery, children will be working at phase 1 and building their love for reading. Children will develop their language through a range of books, nursery rhymes, action songs and poems. They will explore key verbs and nouns and engage in a range of different books. This will provide opportunities for children to develop their language, including speaking and listening skills. Children will also begin to develop oral blending and segmenting skills.
In Reception, children will be working at phase 2, 3 and 4. We begin with 10 minute lessons which move onto 30 minute lessons as the year goes on, and the children are ready. To make a strong start in Reception, teaching begins in week 2 of the Autumn term. In Reception, children are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs), and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy. We aim for all children in Reception to be blending by Christmas.
In Year 1, children review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. At the end of Year 1 children will take the Phonics Screening Check. Some children may continue on the Little Wandle Programme in Year 2.
In Year 2, children will continue on the Little Wandle Programme initially, consolidating Phase 5. Children will then focus on ensuring they are fluent readers and accurate spellers. We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. We use Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.
