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

PHONICS 

EYFS & KS1 

Our school follows the Little Wandle Letters and Sound Revised approach to Phonics. The approach caters for all learning styles (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic).  All teachers and teaching assistants have accessed online CPD training modules which has been monitored by the English lead. 

Little Wandle is a whole class phonics programme that supports the phonetic needs of all our learners. This is a systematic and consistent approach which is taught between 15 and 30 minutes every day; this is dependent on the age and stage of the children being taught. The children are taught new sounds, key phrases and terminology. These are then used to support reading and writing during reading practice and writing sessions.  

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme progression is as follows: 

READING 

EYFS & KS1 

In Nursery, the children are exposed to a range of wordless Big Books in order to develop a love of books.  During short book sharing sessions, the children are shown how to turn pages, and, when introduced to words, are taught the convention of reading from left to right.   

Reading in EYFS and KS1 is taught in line with the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme through Reading Practice sessions. All children should read in small groups (no more than 6 children) with an adult 3 times a week. Children read the same appropriately-pitched, phonetically decodable reading book in all 3 sessions. 

Reading Practice sessions follow the same order every week:  

1. Decoding 

The first reading practice session focuses on decoding the text, with the children concentrating on applying their phonic knowledge and developing fluency when reading the words. 

1. Prosody 
   The second reading session provides the opportunity to read the book again and practise reading with prosody so the children develop reading with appropriate meaning, stress and intonation. It provides an opportunity to explore characters’ feelings, what words mean and how punctuation adds to the meaning. 

2. Comprehension  

The purpose of the reading practice session for comprehension is to develop the children’s comprehension skills by using the reading content domains (2015 Key Stage 1: English reading test framework).  
• Draw on their knowledge of vocabulary to understand texts.  
         • Identify/explain key aspects of fiction and non-fiction texts.  
 • Identify and explain the sequence of events in the text.  
  • Inference and deduction.  
     • Prediction 

Every Reading Practice session follows the same structure using a given template and prompt cards: 

• Preparation Pre-read 

• Revisit and review  

• Practise and apply  

• Review 

After session 3 (comprehension), children are expected to take the same reading book home to celebrate their reading progress with parents. 

When children are secure on Little Wandle phonics, they will be assessed using PM Benchmark materials. PM Benchmarking states that an expected Year 2 child should be reading book levels 17-22. Therefore, we will begin assessing children using a Level 17 assessment and they will move through the levels at the appropriate pace.

Year 2 – Reading Fluency

Pupils in Year 2 will move onto the Little Wandle Fluency Programme when they have reached the following criteria:

• They passed the PSC in Year 1.
• They have been reading Phase 5, Set 5 books for at least 5 weeks.
• They have completed the Phase 5 Set 5 fluency assessment and achieved a reading speed of at least 60 words per minute and an accuracy rate of at least 90%.

Little Wandle Fluency teaches all aspects of reading using vibrant, diverse and engaging chapter books created by contemporary authors and illustrators. Each book has been carefully devised to support children as they progress in reading fluency through Years 2 and beyond; making sure every child can become a confident, fluent and motivated reader.

Little Wandle Fluency promotes comprehension through:

 • the pre-read activities which support vocabulary

• the bonus materials throughout each book that give children more information about the world of the book to help them connect to it more

• teaching prosody so that way the text is spoken creates meaning

• chatting about the book in a dialogic way that gives children time to think and connect to what they have read

• clarifying any misconceptions.

Prosody

We teach prosody in every Little Wandle Fluency reading lesson, building on the familiar practice from the Little Wandle core programme reading practice sessions. We know teaching prosody helps children to understand the text at a deeper level and connect to language – it makes the meaning of the words come alive for them as readers.

Each Fluency lesson includes repeated reading. We have chosen the activities we believe have the biggest impact and are easiest to implement in a group.

They are:

• echo reading

• rehearsed reading

• emotion reading

• marking up texts for reading with prosody.

KS2 

Key Stage 2 classes follow the Local Authority ‘Reading Project’. It consists of at least 1 shared reading lesson every 2 weeks followed by guided reading groups that follow a 2-weekly cycle. Resources for the KS2 Reading Project such as planning templates, sentence stems and big question prompts can be found on SharePoint. 

Shared Reading – core principles 

• Whole class teaching of an aspect of reading  

• Clear objective for the session 

• Modelling the thinking processes of a good comprehender at the point of reading  

• Using rich and challenging text 

Guided Reading – core principles 

• Appropriate, instructional level text  

• Ability groups  

• Teacher works with a different group in turn – teacher-led  

• Clear reiteration of taught focus for the week or an amended focus to suit the needs of the group  

• Children apply the strategy they have been learning, reading independently with teacher ‘listening in’ (NOT ‘round robin’)  

• Children talk about their reading with each other and especially about how well they are applying the teaching focus 

Library

Children at Barley Croft have access to lending libraries. EYFS/KS1 and KS2 have separate spaces with a wide range of engaging, diverse and current authors and books.

Every class has a timetabled weekly slot to visit the library where they will borrow a reading for pleasure book or a text to share at home. Children are given the opportunity to independently choose a library book to borrow, however, some pupils may be guided by adults in school to ensure appropriate and accessible texts are chosen to maximise reading enjoyment.

Each week, adults will support children to scan their chosen book in and out on a laptop using the Library software, Libresoft. 

In addition, class teachers may wish to use their library slot to: 

• Read a story to the class or a group of children 
• Explore different books & make recommendations 
• Write book reviews & suggestions  
• Learn about new authors

Reading books 

All children will have a reading book to bring home in addition to a reading for pleasure/sharing book. In EYFS and KS1, this will be a Little Wandle phonetically decodable book. In KS2, this will be a book based on PM Benchmark levels. Children in KS2 are heard individually as appropriate to their stage of learning.  

Story time 

All children at Barley Croft should be read to as a whole class at least 4 times a week. In Key Stage 2, this is in the form of a class novel which can also be used to teach shared reading. 

Classrooms 

Every classroom will have a designated area for reading. This may include a bookshelf, book baskets or boxes with well-selected texts. Some of the books should be front-facing. Each classroom will have a reading display to share the class reading journey throughout the year. This could include reading skills, pictures of book covers, titles, reviews and/or QR codes where appropriate.  

Classroom book bags

Every classroom at Barley Croft, from Nursery to Year 6, have their own book bag to further promote reading for enjoyment. The bags are filled with a fantastic range of age-appropriate texts to share at home. One child from each class is chosen weekly to borrow the book bag and return the following week. Families are encouraged to read the books together and they are given the opportunity to respond in a class reading journal. This may be a written, pictorial, creative or spoken (recorded on our platform, Seesaw) outcome.