Eagle Community Primary School

Phonics

 

Intent
At Eagle CP School, we strive for all our pupils to become fluent readers and writers. Our aims are for pupils to:
  • Build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school
  • 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
  • Be taught fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme
Implementation
We teach a synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Little Eagles with Little Wandle Foundations in order to prepare pupils for the learning of the Letters and sounds in Reception and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression. We model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and outside of the phonics lesson and across the curriculum. We have a strong focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.
Foundations for phonics in Nursery
We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children 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
    • attention to high-quality language.
We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception.
Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1
We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. 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.
Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins at the start of the first full week of the Autumn term. This allows the school to follow the weekly Little Wandle  Programme correctly. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress:
  • 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
  • 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
Daily phonics lessons in Year 2
Little Wandle Letters and sounds have created a scheme to move onto after Year 1:
  • If the children are secure with Phase 5, then they will complete a Phase 5 revision term looking at more complex words. They will then complete a 5 week, ‘Bridge to Spelling’ block in which they learn to spell uncommon digraphs.
  • If the children are not secure in Phase 5, the children will participate in Rapid Catch up lessons for the appropriate Phase.
  • In the Spring term ALL children will complete the 20 week spelling units.
Daily Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read
  • Any child who needs additional practice has Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.
  • We allocate phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or 3 who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics screening check. These children need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. 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.
Teaching reading
We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
  • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children.
  • use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’
Each reading practice session has 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: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text
In the Reception year these sessions start within the first term. 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. In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.
Ensuring reading for pleasure
‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success.’ (OECD 2002)
‘The will influences the skill and vice versa.’ (OECD 2010)
 We value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.
  • We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books.
  • In Nursery/Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed.
  • Children from Nursery/Reception onwards have a home reading record. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will write in this on a regular basis to ensure communication between home and school.
Home reading
The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family. Reading for pleasure books also go home for parents to share and read to children.
 
Impact
Assessment
Assessment is used to monitor progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it.
    • daily within class to identify children needing Keep-up support
    • weekly in the Review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings.
    • every six weeks to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
    • by our Phonics/Reading Lead and scrutinised through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker, to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.
 
Statutory assessment
  • Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in Year 2.
 
At Eagle CP School, the quality teaching of Phonics results in:
  • Pupils at Eagle CP School being able to master phonics to read and spell as they move through school
  • Pupils becoming confident readers and developing this a crucial life skill
  • Pupils seeing themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose
  • Development of resilience and perseverance
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