Phonics

Intent

Phonics 

At St Oswald’s , 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. 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.

As a result, all our children are able to tackle any unfamiliar words as they read.

At St Oswald’s, 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 focus on language development for our children because we know that speaking and listening are crucial skills for reading and writing in all subjects.

Resources and Videos

The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. There are also some useful videos so you can see how they are taught at school and feel confident about supporting your child’s reading at home.

Reading EYFS & Key Stage One

At St Oswalds, we value reading as a crucial life skill. By the time children leave us, we want them to be able to 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.

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

• are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups
• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids: ‘Application of phonics to reading’
• are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

Reading in Key Stage Two

Reading skills are  taught in discrete lessons 4 times a week to support the reading ability of all children. Year 2 (after Christmas) and Key Stage 2 use a mixture of books and extracts to teach vocabulary retrieval and inference.

In Key stage 2, children access a wide variety of books. Any child that cannot access age-related books are  put on the appropriate level (this includes age appropriate at a level the children can access).

All children in school have the opportunity to receive reading certificates every 20 times they have read at home. These are given out in Friday Celebration Worship.

Children that require more time to become  readers are supported by the Accelerated Reading programme outlined by the Educational Psychology Service which is based on the High Frequency words and phonics.  This is complemented by Little Wandle phonics catch up sessions.