Phonics
Phonics and Early Reading at Crownfield Infant and Nursery School
At Crownfield Infant and Nursery School, we believe that all 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 and synthetic phonics programme.
For more ideas on how to support at home, please click this link for information on how to pronounce the phonemes (sounds), how to blend sounds to read, how to support with reading books and more:
Phonics - How parents can support at home
You can view the progression here:
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression
Foundations for phonics in Nursery
We provide a sound start for pupils in our Nursery by following a set of key principles in the Foundation for Phonics document from Little Wandle. 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’.
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.
Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week
We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:
o are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children
o use decodable books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised books only.
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.
Please watch the video below on how to support your child with reading Little Wandle books at home.
How to help with reading Little Wandle books at home
When children are fluent, accurate and read with expression with all the books in the Little Wandle Scheme, they will move to reading colour banded books from Turquoise onwards. This is likely to be towards the end of Year One or in Year Two. They will then move from Turquoise through to Purple, Gold, White, Lime and then last of all to Free Reader. Please watch the video below on how to support your child with reading these books at home.
How to help with reading colour banded reading books at home, e.g Turquoise
You can also find out more by reading our Phonics and Early Reading Policy:
Phonics and Early Reading Policy
Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check in early June. Results are shared with parents in the Summer Term. Any child not passing the check re-sits it in June of Year 2. We already have detailed assessments of your child's phonics ability so this will not tell us anything new but is a nationally agreed age appropriate standard.
During the Phonics Screening Check, children are asked to read (decode) 40 words. Most of these words are real words but some are pseudo-words. Pseudo-words are included to ensure that children are using their decoding skills and not just relying on their memory of words they’ve read before. Because some children may misread these pseudo-words based on their similarity to words in their existing vocabulary, each pseudo-word is clearly identified with an image of an alien.
There is no time limit for the Phonics Screening Check, but it usually takes less than 10 minutes. If a child doesn’t meet the expected standard, we provide additional phonics teaching and support they need to secure rapid progression in their decoding and reading skills.
Please watch the first 1 minute 40 seconds of this clip for further description of the Phonics Screening Check
