Phonics

Phonics

Intent 

Phonics (reading and spelling) 

At Thornhill Primary 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 synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Reception and 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.  

After completing the phonics programme, all children will be able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read. At Thornhill 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. 

Comprehension 

At Thornhill Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. One of our utmost goals is that 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. 

Because we believe teaching every child to read 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 Letters and Sounds Revised programme. 

Language and nursery rhymes in Reception 

• We use the Little Wandle Rhyme time videos and accompanying phonological awareness planning to complement and reinforce our Phase 2 teaching in the Autumn term. 

Implementation  

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. 

• Children make a strong start in Reception: 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 who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning. 

• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child who is not fully fluent at reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children need to urgently catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach these using the Keep-up resources – at pace.  

• If any child in Year 3 to 6 has gaps in their phonic knowledge when reading or writing, we plan phonics ‘catch-up’ lessons to address specific reading/writing gaps. These short, sharp lessons last 10 minutes and take place at least three times a week. 

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 review 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. 

• Once the Phase 5 review is secure, we teach the Bridge to spelling before moving to the Spelling units.  

• Children with larger gaps in their phonic knowledge than their peers have daily phonics teaching and follow the Rapid Catch-up programme.  

Children in Year 2 to Year 6: Rapid Catch-up 

• We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who is not at age-related expectations for reading or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. These children urgently need to catch up, so the gap between themselves and their peers does not widen. 

• These short, sharp lessons last 15 to 20 minutes daily and have been designed to ensure children quickly catch up to age-related expectations in reading.  

• We assess children who are new to our school, new to the country or new to English using the Rapid Catch-up assessments to quickly identify their needs. 

• We use the Rapid Catch-up assessments to identify the gaps in children’s phonic knowledge and teach these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace.  

• We assess children every four weeks using the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching. 

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week 

• We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These sessions: 

• are taught by a fully trained adult in smaller groups of approximately six children 

• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids 

• 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 

• prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression 

• comprehension: teaching children to understand text. 

• In Reception these sessions start in week 4. 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. 

• In Year 2, we ensure children complete reading the core programme decodable books (up to Phase 5 Set 5). To exit the programme, we complete the final fluency assessment to ensure children can read with adequate speed and accuracy: approximately 60 words per minute with 90%+ accuracy.  

• Reading in Rapid Catch-up lessons mirrors the core programme. Children following the Rapid Catch-up programme are taught to read using the 7+ fully decodable books. These follow the same progression as the core programme but are more appropriate for older readers. 

Teaching reading: Fluency programme 

• We teach reading to children in Year 2 and above who have exited the core programme using Little Wandle Fluency.  

• Each Fluency reading lesson is 25 to 30 minutes. The structure of every lesson is the same: 

• A pre-read to practise reading words and to support vocabulary 

• Children read aloud for ten minutes and the teacher ‘taps in’ to hear every child read 

• Focused teaching of prosody, repeated reading and comprehension through discussion. 

• We assess reading speed and accuracy every 12 weeks and use these assessments to monitor progress and allocate books. 

• We also use Assessment for Learning (AfL) and our professional judgement to assess each child’s progress in reading, so we can ensure that they have the right books to meet their needs. 

• Comprehension is taught through dialogic talk, and teachers use their AfL to quickly address misconceptions and develop children’s curiosity and engagement with each book. 

Home reading 

• The decodable reading practice book is taken home to ensure success is shared with the family.  

• The children have a Reading Passport so we can monitor how frequently they are reading at home.  

• Reading for Pleasure (RfP) books also go home for parents to share and read to children.  

• We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops. 

Additional reading support for vulnerable children  

• Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Daily Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book regularly to an adult in school.  

• We prioritise children who may not have reading support at home or who may not have access to books. We ensure that they have individual reading times with volunteers and staff to share quality children’s literature to promote a love of reading. 

Ensuring consistency and pace of progress 

• Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. We all use the same language, routines and resources to teach children to read so that we lower children’s cognitive load. 

• Weekly content grids map each element of new learning to each day, week and term for the duration of the programme.  

• Lesson templates, prompt cards and ‘How to’ videos ensure teachers all have a consistent approach and structure for each lesson. 

• The Reading Leader uses checklists and templates to regularly monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and have gaps in learning.  

Ensuring Reading for Pleasure  

‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success’ (OECD 2002). 

‘The will influences the skill and vice versa’ (OECD 2010). 

We highly value reading for pleasure and work hard as a school to grow our reading for pleasure pedagogy. 

• We read aloud to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including those that reflect the children at our school and our local community as well as books that open windows into other worlds and cultures. 

• Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. We curate these books and talk about them to entice children to read a wide range of books.  

• In Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free-flow time and the books are continually refreshed.  

• Children in KS1 have a home Reading Passport. The parent/carer records comments to share with the adults in school and the adults will check this on a regular basis. Children earn Reading badges as rewards for reading at home. 

• Children choose from our range of carefully chosen books to take home and share with an adult. We keep a record of the children’s choices, so we get to know them as readers. 

• As children progress through school, we take time to get to know them as readers and ensure that we engage in meaningful conversations about the books that they have read. By doing this we can recommend authors and genres of books to expand their interests. 

• The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events, etc.). 

Impact  

Assessment 

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

• Assessment for Learning is used:  

• daily within class to identify children who require Daily Keep-up support, as well as words and GPCs that need additional teaching  

• weekly in the Friday review lesson to assess gaps, address these immediately and secure fluency of GPCs, words and spellings. 

• Summative assessments are uploaded onto the Assessment tracker. These are used: 

• to generate visual reports (pupil heatmaps, pupil trends and book levels, and a summary analysis) for individual children, classes and whole year groups 

• by teachers, Reading Leaders and SLT who drill down and look at the data of GPC, word, tricky word and sentence level 

• by SLT to scrutinise and plan how to narrow the attainment gaps between different groups of children and to put in place any additional support for teachers. 

We assess: 

• 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 

• to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Daily Keep-up support that they need. 

Every three weeks, we reassess every child who is not on track.  

 

Statutory assessment 

• Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics Screening Check. 

• It is administered during the summer term by a familiar adult.  

• Any child not passing the check resits it in Year 2.

 

Ongoing assessment for Rapid Catch-up in Year 2 to 6 

• Children in Year 2 to 6 are assessed through: 

• the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriately 

• teaching the Rapid Catch-up summative assessments to assess progress and inform teaching 

• the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3,4 and 5 books for age 7+ 

• The fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed using short one-minute assessments. They also assess when children are ready to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme, which is when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute.