Phonics

Phonics Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Intent

Phonics (reading and spelling)

At Aylesham Primary School we believe that all 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. This programme is a complete teaching programme meeting all the expectations of the National Curriculum, the Ofsted deep dive into reading and preparing your children to go beyond the expectations of the Phonics Screening Check at the end of Year 1. 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 Aylesham 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.

All staff are trained in the delivery of Little Wandle Revised Letters and Sounds lessons and our Phonics Lead monitors and supports the delivery of these lessons to ensure fidelity to the programme.

Comprehension

At Aylesham Primary School, we value reading as a crucial life skill. 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 important, we have an Early Reading Lead who drives the early reading programme in our school. This person is highly skilled at teaching phonics and reading, and they monitor and support staff, so everyone teaches with fidelity to the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds programme.

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.
Children make a strong start in Reception: teaching begins in the second week that all children are attending class.
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.

Keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read

Any child who needs additional practice will have Keep-up support throughout the week using the same procedures, resources and mantras as in the main lessons, but in smaller focused steps with more repetition.

We timetable daily phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 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.

Teaching reading: Weekly Reading practice sessions at least twice a week

We teach children to read through reading practice sessions at least twice a week. These:

are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of children

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 he class teacher, who rotates and works withn each group on a regular basis.

Each reading 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 the text.

In Reception these sessions start after the first termly assessment. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

In Year 2 we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practise reading with decodable books.

Home reading

The decodable reading practice book is taken home at the end of each week, for a week, to ensure success is shared with the family.

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

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 and SLT use the Audit and Prompt cards to monitor and observe teaching; they use the summative data to identify children who need additional support and 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 value reading for pleasure highly and work hard as a school to grow our Reading for Pleasure pedagogy.

We read to children every day. We choose these books carefully as we want children to experience a wide range of books, including books that reflect the children at Aylesham Primary 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.
The school library is made available for classes to use at protected times. It must be booked via the school booking system. Our classes are named after age appropriate children’s authors and children will spend time learning about theirs and other class authors. Our class names are changed yearly to increase the number of authors our children have the potential to experience.

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 needing Keep-up support

Summative assessment for Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 (where required) is used:

termly to assess progress, to identify gaps in learning that need to be addressed, to identify any children needing additional support and to plan the Keep-up support that they need.
by the Early Reading Lead and SLT to narrow attainment gaps between different groups of children and so that any additional support for teachers can be put into place.

Fluency assessments measure children’s accuracy and reading speed in short one-minute assessments. They are used:

in Year 1, when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books to assess when children are ready to exit the programme.

in Year 2, when they are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books to assess when children are ready to exit the programme.

A placement assessment is used:

with any child new to the school to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan and provide appropriate extra teaching, or with any child who is reading below age related expectations in Key Stage 2.

Statutory assessment

Children in Year 1 sit the Phonics screening check. Any child not passing the check
re-sits it in Year 2.

Ongoing assessment for Rapid Catch-up beyond Year 3

In Year 3 children who have not reached the required level on the fluency assessment and on the on-going termly assessments continue to receive daily Phonics lessons, and/or interventions dependent on their need. This may mean they are following the Rapid Catch-up programme.

Children in Years 4, 5 and 6 who have not reached the required fluency reading ability are assessed using the Rapid Catch-up initial assessment to quickly identify any gaps in their phonic knowledge and plan appropriate teaching and are assessed using the Rapid Catch-up assessments to assess progress.

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