We have recently taken the decision to change our Phonics Scheme to Little Wandle Letters and Sounds in order to further enrich our existing teaching of phonics and early reading.
Little Wandle highly values a great love of reading for pleasure and so, we feel, fits in with our principles well.
Reading enables children to function successfully in our increasingly text-filled world. But research also tells us that:
• Reading develops children’s vocabulary, understanding of the world and empathy.
• A love of reading is the biggest indicator of future academic success!
We feel that Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised will enrich the excellent practise we already have in place to help children to read and to love reading.
How will your child be taught?
Your child will continue to be taught a daily phonics session. This will last for 20 to 30 minutes.
In this they will learn to say and read graphemes that represent a sound (phoneme). This may be single letter sounds (eg m, a, s), a diagraph which is two letters to represent one sound (eg sh, ay, ow) or a trigraph which is three letters to represent one sound (eg igh, air, ear).
They will learn to blend sounds together to read words. This will be regularly revisited in order to help your child develop automatic reading of a range of words and tricky words.
Some common words are unusual and do not make sense with phonics until much later in your child’s reading journey, for example, ‘was’ and ‘the’. We call these words ‘tricky words’ and we teach these words differently. We help children to identify the bit that does make sense and the part that is tricky.
They will read books which have been matched to their phonic ability and explore these within reading sessions three times a week.
Where your child needs it, we will continue to make use of additional practise.
What will my child bring home?
Your child will bring home a ‘seen’ phonics book which they will have read and discussed in their small group reading sessions. They will also bring home an ‘unseen’ phonics book matched to their ability which they will not have previously read. We shall continue to send home reading for pleasure books from our school library.
As we are sure you can appreciate, this move to Little Wandle has meant a change to the routines and methods we have previously used and staff have undertaken lots of training to prepare them for the new approach. We are working closely with our local English Hub as we continue to implement this scheme and further strengthen our teaching and learning of phonics.
Over the next few weeks staff are going to be getting used to the new routines and systems so we ask that you show patience as we introduce it.
What can I do to support my child at home?
• Ask them what sounds they have learned each day and point out objects in the environment or in books that start with that sound.
• Read to your child daily – choose books that you can enjoy together. The love of reading books we send home are a great place to start!
• Listen to them practise reading their phonics book to develop their fluency.
• Ask your child’s teacher if you need extra help with supporting your child – that’s what we’re here for!