At the Blue Hills Federation, each school teaches phonics using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised scheme which is validated by the Department of Education. The scheme draws on the latest research into how children learn best, how to ensure learning stays in the children’s long-term memory and how best to enable children to apply their phonics learning to become highly competent readers.
In our Nursery at Clunbury and our pre-school at Bucknell, we teach Foundations for Phonics, Foundations for Language and Foundations for a Love of Reading. These three parts of the programme work together to prepare children for the phonics teaching in Reception. They include a huge range of short, fun activities supporting pupils’ language development, story reading, phonological awareness and oral blending.
In Reception, teachers can continue to use Foundations for Language and Foundations for a Love of Reading – and use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revisited core programme to teach children Phase 2 sounds from the start of the school year in September. The initial phonics lessons are lively, short lessons that will take 10 minutes. They will help children to learn the routines and are full of fun. The children play lots of oral blending games every day, such as, ‘Can you touch your l-e-g? Can your pat your h-ea-d?
In Year One, we carry on teaching of phonics up to Phase 5 with fun activities based around a clear format which ensures that children do not have cognitive memory overload. They learn how to ‘grow the code’ and learn alternative unusual graphemes for the different phonemes.
To begin with, the children bring back a sharing book, which we want you to read to the children in a cosy place where you can enjoy the book together. Later, the children will bring home their reading books which they will read to you. They will have read this book in school three times before bringing it home to you and their ability to read the words automatically and confidently will develop.
At the end of Year One, the children have a Phonics Screening check, but their phonics learning doesn’t stop there; they will continue to use their phonics learning when they meet unfamiliar words beyond primary school.
Please click here to find the Parents page on Little Wandle for more information about the phonics scheme we use, or as always, just come and ask us.
