At St Benedict’s Catholic Primary School, reading is valued and promoted to be an enjoyable activity and an essential life skill. Children are encouraged to become confident, fluent and enthusiastic readers.

Phonics 

Intent

At St. Benedict’s Catholic Academy we believe that for all our children to become fluent readers and writers, phonics must be taught through a systematic and structured phonics programme.

We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised to deliver high quality engaging phonics and reading sessions to our pupils.

We also believe that reading widely and choosing quality texts, allows children to develop a lifelong love of reading.

Implementation

The systematic teaching of phonics has a high priority in school.

Our phonics teaching starts in Nursery and follows a very specific sequence that allows pupils to build on their previous learning.

Phonics is taught daily to all children in EYFS and Key Stage One.

Staff systematically teach children the relationship between letter sounds and the written spelling patterns, the graphemes, which represent letter sounds.

Phonic displays in classrooms further enhance the rich literacy environment for early readers.

  • In the Nursery, children follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised ‘Foundations for Phonics’ guidance. The focus is on daily oral blending and language development through high quality stories and rhymes. Children are also taught to listen with focus e.g to environmental sounds and music.
  • In Reception and Y1, children follow the progression within Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. Phonics is taught daily and there is a review session on a Friday.
  • Phonics starts in Reception during week 2 to ensure the children make a strong start.
  • By the end of Reception, children will have been taught up to the end of phase 4.
  • By the end of Y1, children will have been taught up to the end of phase 5.
  • Reception lessons start at 10 minutes, with daily additional oral blending – increasing to 30 minutes as soon as possible.
  • Y1 lessons are 30 minutes long.
  • In Y2-Y3, phonic lessons are taught daily to children when appropriate – following the model of Little Wandle but teaching specific gaps identified through assessment.
  • In Y2-Y6 there are planned phonic ‘catch-up’ sessions following a set model to address specific reading/writing gaps. These are short, sharp sessions lasting 10 minutes in length and taking place at least three times a week.

Children who are learning to read are carefully matched to reading books to take home. This is called a reading practice book. We use ‘Big Cat’ reading books published by Harper Collins.

Children are taught to identify letter sounds within words and to ‘blend’ the letter sounds together to read a word e.g. ‘c- oa- t’  ‘sh-ee-p’.

Children are also taught to read ‘tricky’ words that they are unable to read by decoding such as ‘the’ ‘was’. The reading practice book will be read in school three times as part of a group before it is taken home to share with an adult. Once taken home children should be able to read their practice book confidently and fluently.

We encourage parents and guardians to add a comment into their child’s reading record so that teaching staff and parents/guardians can maintain a dialogue that supports their child as they learn to read.

In addition to the reading practice book children also take home a sharing book.  Children are taken to the school library to select a book that they can enjoy with an adult at home. Sharing books will help children to understand that reading is something that we often do for pleasure. Children are not expected to read sharing books independently.

Reading practice sessions

  • Children in Reception, Y1, Y2 and in Key Stage Two , were appropriate, use their phonics knowledge by using a full matched decodable reader in a small group reading practice session.
  • These sessions are 15 minutes long and take place three times a week.
  • There are approximately 6 children in a group.
  • The sessions follow the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised.
  • The children then take the same book home the following week to ensure success is shared with their
  • In Reception these sessions start in week 4. Children who are not decoding, complete additional blending sessions, following the model set out in Little Wandle Letters and Sound Revised. In Reception and Y1, at the end of each week there is a review session which recaps the learning. There are also whole review weeks (pre-planned and bespoke review weeks to address gaps identified by the class teacher’s ongoing formative assessment).
  • Children identified in Reception and Y1 as in danger of falling behind are immediately identified and daily ‘keep up’ sessions are put in place – sessions follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.
  • In Reception and Y1, the children are assessed at the end of every half term using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessment tracker.
  • The children in Y1 sit the Phonics Screening Check in the summer term.
  • Children who do not pass the Phonics Screening Check in Y1, will re-sit this in Y2.
  • Children who are in Y2-Y6 and need ‘catch up’ sessions are assessed through teacher’s ongoing formative assessment as well as half termly summative assessments.

Impact

All pupils learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities and make progress.

The percentage of pupils working at ARE by the end of each Key Stage will be at least in line with national averages.

  • There will be no significant gaps in the progress of different groups of pupils (e.g. disadvantaged vs non-disadvantaged).
  • Children will use their reading skills as a key tool in helping them to learn, and as a result, know more, remember more and understand more.
  • If you are a parent and would like more information about how to support your child with phonics at home, please follow this link to find the Reception and Year 1 overview as well as videos of the sound pronunciations, letter formation sheets and other helpful resources.
  • https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/