At Trinity All Saints C of E Primary School we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme

Daily phonics lessons in Reception and Year 1

• We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. 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, they then apply this to read longer words in Phase 4 with fluency and accuracy.
• Children in Year 1 review the previous phases and move on to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.

Daily Keep-up and Catch 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, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning.

• We timetable daily Rapid Catch up phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 or above who is not fully fluent at 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. We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments to identify the gaps in their phonic knowledge and teach to these using the Rapid Catch-up resources – at pace. 

Teaching reading: Reading practise sessions three times a week

• In reception and KS1 we teach children to read through reading practise sessions three times a week. These are:

  • Taught by a fully trained adult in small groups of approximately six children

  • Use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments

  • Groups are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

• Each reading practise session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practise 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 the text.

Support for parents

Please see our link below for how you can support your child at home:

For parents | Letters and Sounds