Phonics at Swaffham Primary Academy

Phonics

Intent

The intent of our phonics curriculum at Swaffham C of E Primary School is to ensure that all of our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching Little Wandle Foundations in our Nursery and then, from Reception, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Swaffham C of E Primary School, we also 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.  We value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, they read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure. Our readers are equipped with the tools to tackle unfamiliar vocabulary. We encourage our children to see themselves as readers for both pleasure and purpose. As we believe teaching every child is so important, we have a Reading Leader who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled in teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support our reading team, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle and Sounds Revised programme. 

Implementation

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. 
• Little Wandle Foundations is aligned to the non-statutory guidance on Development Matters and Birth to 5 Matters as well as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. We use it as part of our wider provision for Communication and Language, and Literacy. It supports children to: 
  • develop their phonological awareness, including rhyme, alliteration, syllables, initial and voice sounds, and oral blending. 
  • love stories and rhymes, and learn by heart a bank of familiar favourites
  • increase their vocabulary and confidence to talk
  • improve their listening and ability to take part in back-and-forth conversations. 
• We believe that the priority in Nursery should be to build the foundations for phonics for all children. Research tells us that disadvantages children start Nursery behind their more fortunate peers. By leaving formal phonics teaching to Reception, Foundations allows us to devote more time to working with children who need extra help to develop the skills and behaviours that underpin successful reading. 
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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 full-length lessons as quickly as possible. Every Friday, we review the week's teaching to help children become fluent readers. Children make a strong start in Reception as teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term. 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 Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read. 

Any child in Reception and Year 1 who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult. Daily Keep-up lessons follow the Little Wandle progression and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition so that every child secures their learning. 

Daily phonics and spelling in Year 2 

Year 2 begins by using assessment to ensure that children have completed the Little Wandle Year 1 progression. Any gaps in teaching are addressed through daily phonics lessons until the programme is completed. Corresponding summative assessments are carried out to ensure this content is secure. Once all Year 1 content has been taught and assessed, we teach a five-week Phase 5 review. This ensures that children secure the trickier elements of Phase 5 and can apply this alphabetic knowledge in both reading and spelling. We use the Phase 5 reviee assessment before teaching in Year 2 to identify any children who may need more support when teaching. We reassess after teaching the Phase 5 review. 

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions. 

We teach reading practice sessions three times a week. These sessions are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups. The books that are used are matched to the children's secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids. Additionally, they are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis. 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: teaching children to use phonic knowledge to read words. 
• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression. 
• comprehension: using dialogic talk to help children to understand the text. 

In Reception, these sessions start in week 4 of teaching at the latest. Initially, children will read wordless books. In these sessions, children review GPCs and are taught blending using teacher-led blending. Once children can blend, they progress onto decodable books matched to their secure phonic knowledge. Children read each book, three times to develop phonemic awareness, vocabulary and comprehension as well as book behaviours.  At the end of each week, the decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with their family.

Assessment 

Assessment is used to monitor and progress and to identify any child needing additional support as soon as they need it. 

• Assessment for Learning (AfL) is used daily within class to identify children who require Daily Keep-up support, as well as words and GPCs that need additional teaching. Furthermore, it is used to plan repeated practice throughout the day to ensure all children secure learning and weekly within the Friday review lessons to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings. 
• Summative assessments are uploaded onto the assessment tracker for Reception and Year 1. These are used to generate visual reports (pupil heatmap, pupil trends and book levels, an a summary analysis) for individual children and classes. 
• We assess the children every six weeks to assess progress and to identify gaps in learning that need to be reviewed or retaught, to establish if learning is secure for more than 70% of children before new content is taught and to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Daily Keep-up support that they need. We reassess the children every 3 weeks if they are not on track. 

 

 

Reading Books and Reading Rambles 

All of our students are given a home reading book that they can take home to read. The book that the children bring home with be the one they have been reading during their Reading Practise Sessions. They will bring this home with their Reading Ramble. Their Reading Ramble is a communication tool between home and school about your child's reading and will include exciting challenges which are updated each half term for the children to complete based on their reading. These activities are to help encourage children’s confidence, fluency and comprehension skills with reading. It also gives adults at home the opportunity to communicate with school about conversations they have had around reading, sounds or words that they may have found challenging. School staff will also have the opportunity to listen to children read and communicate with home about their reading. We have found that our Reading Rambles have engaged the children to want to talk about reading and has made a fantastic connection with home. Reading Rambles should be brought into school daily so we can see all of the brilliant work that the children have been doing around their reading.  

In Reception and Year 1, all children are given a Little Wandle decodable reading book. This has been based off of their assessments and they have been able to practise decoding, prosody and comprehension with their reading book during Reading Practice Sessions. It is important that the children are reading books that match the phonetic sounds that they have already learnt and know as it help to consolidate their learning and ensure fluency with their phonemes. Ultimately, this will help with our vision and belief of creating enthusiastic, confident and motivated readers before moving them on to more challenging texts. From Year 2, children who are still needing support with their reading will be given a home reading book that is linked to their reading age. Once the children have displayed that they are reading fluently and no longer need the support of reading banded books, the children will become ‘free readers’ and will begin to choose their own reading books, either books that are available in the reading corners, school library or their reading books that they have from home.