Foundation Stage

Children start to learn phonics in the Foundation Stage, starting with a 20 minute daily phonics session that builds up in time over the year. They begin to learn the range of graphemes (letters or groups of letters) that symbolise the 44 phonemes (sounds) in the English language. Through Little Wandle, pupils learn how to use these phonemes to blend together the sounds to read a word and how to segment a word into the phonemes in order to spell it. 

In addition to the daily phonics sessions, children take part in 3 reading sessions per week, where they use the skills they are taught in phonics to apply into their reading.

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Each reading session has a specific focus. These are:

• Decoding

• prosody (reading with rhythm and intonation)

• comprehension

After completing their reading session in school, children will then bring home their reading book to read at home. They should be able to read most of this book fluently and it is their time to shine!

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Year 1

The initial skills that the children are taught in Foundation Stage are further developed in Year 1 where again, the children have daily sessions of around 40 minutes. In Year 1, pupils begin to learn a range of different spellings and that a grapheme can be pronounced in different ways (e.g. the ow in cow is different to the ow in crow). They continue to take part in 3 adult led reading sessions per week, each with a different focus. Again, like in Foundation Stage 2, children will then bring home their reading book to read at home.

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Useful video link for parents

Please use this link

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

to visit the Little Wandle website where you will find some useful videos and information to support your child at home.

 

Below are some useful links that show the overview of the phonics progression and how we teach letter formation using useful rhymes in school.