Right from the start of Reception children have a daily phonics lesson which follows the progression for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds and this continues in Year One to ensure children become fluent readers. We teach phonics for 20 minutes every morning. In Reception, we build from 10-15 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, our phonics teaching begins in Week 1 of the Autumn term to ensure children make a strong start. We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress. Four new phonemes and their corresponding graphemes are taught (GPCs) each week and they are then used in the final lesson of the week to review the week’s learning. Children will also learn tricky words during these sessions.

In the Autumn and Spring term, Reception learn phase 2 and phase 3 GPCs and then will spend the final term learning phase 4 (please see pronunciation guide below.)

Year 1 begin the Autumn term with 3 weeks of revision of phases 2, 3 and 4 before learning phase 5, which will be completed by the end of the year. Year 2 children will begin the year by revisiting phase 5 and other previously taught phases to ensure all children are completely confident with applying these GPCs in both their reading and also their writing. Please see the overview here for what this progression looks like. Half termly assessments take place through Reception and Year 1 to help inform future teaching and help identify children who have gaps in their phonic knowledge and need additional practice. Daily assessment of learning also takes place within the classroom so staff can quickly identify any children who are in danger of falling behind and provide the appropriate daily ‘Keep Up’ intervention.

For support with the pronunciation of the phonemes taught, please refer to the videos below.

Click on the links below to view pronunciation guides for Reception

Autumn 1

Phase 2 sounds taught in Reception Autumn 1 from Little Wandle on Vimeo.

Autumn 2

Phase 2 sounds taught in Reception Autumn 2 from Little Wandle on Vimeo.

Spring

Phase 3 sounds taught in Reception Spring 1 from Little Wandle on Vimeo.

Click on the links below to view pronunciation guides for children learning Phase 5 sounds (Year 1)

How to say Phase 5 sounds from Little Wandle on Vimeo.