Little Wandle

At Nottingham Academy Primary, 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 Nursery and 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.

Children continue to be taught using the Little Wandle programme in year 1 and into year 2 and KS2 if they did not reach the required standard in the year 1 phonics screening test.

At Nottingham Academy, we also model the application of the alphabetic code through phonics in shared reading and writing, both inside and out of the phonics lessons 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.

 

Implementation of phonics and guided reading:

The implementation of Little Wandle has changed the way phonics and reading are taught in school. The change has already had a positive effect on the children’s application of their phonics skills outside of phonics lessons, and we are thrilled with the reading progress and outcomes our children are achieving. 

Children’s progression in phonics is directly related to their reading ability. The Little Wandle programme has a thorough and consistent approach which interlinks both of these skills.

• The children are taught phonemes (the letter sounds) and how we recognise and read these in words and sentences. They are taught overt blending (sounding the word out), but fluent blending in their heads is the ultimate goal.
• The children are assessed regularly, which informs teachers of precise gaps so that they can respond quickly and effectively to children's next steps. 
• The children have daily phonics lessons and keep up sessions for children that have been identified as needing some additional support. 
• Guided reading is taught three times a week in year 1 and twice a week in F2.
• We use Big Cats phonics letters and sounds books which match the Little Wandle scheme. The books are completely decodable and matched to what is being taught in the lessons.
• The guiding reading sessions will focus on building the skills of decoding (applying knowledge of letters and sounds to read words), prosody (reading with expression) and comprehension (understanding and interpreting what they have read). Children will use the same book for each of these sessions with the aim to develop fluency by the end of the week. 
• The children will have the same book that they are reading in their practise sessions as their home reading book, and these will be changed once a week.

Reading at home:

Reading with your child at home is vitally important for a number of different reasons:

                                                   

Each week, your child will bring home two books, one Big Cat phonics book, which will be closely matched to their phonics ability for them to practise their decoding, prosody and comprehension. They will be familiar with this book already from their guided reading sessions, but please practice reading this book daily, if you can, to develop confidence and fluency.

The second book will be a 'reading for pleasure' book from our library, which may be of a much higher reading level. Please enjoy reading this book together and sharing ideas around the characters, plot and predictions. 

These books are vital to our teaching and are very expensive too. We ask you to make sure that the books are returned to school every morning. Without them in school, we will not be able to read them in the guided reading practice sessions.

If books are not returned, we will let you know. If books are still not returned, we will unfortunately have to charge for them to be replaced.

For further support, please visit the website below. This gives you information about how you can support phonics at home, how the sounds are pronounced, how we teach phonics and the books that will be coming home.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Supporting your child with their reading:

Big Cat phonics book:

This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading.

Top tips:

• Listen to them read the book.
• Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success!
• If they can’t read a word, ask them to say the sounds in the word, can they spot the digraphs (two letters that make one sound, for example, ai, ay, ee, oi). Can they blend the sounds to read the word? If not, read the word to them. 
• If they have had to decode lots of words within the sentence, they will benefit from re-reading the sentence to support their fluency and understanding. 
• After they have finished, talk about the book together. There are some questions you can explore at the back of the book. 

Library book:

In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The library book is a book they have chosen for you to enjoy together.

Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read this alone. Read it to or with them:

• Discuss the pictures
• Predict what might happen next in the book
• Discuss how characters might be feeling
• Use different voices for the characters
• Explore the facts in a non-fiction book
• The main thing is that you have fun!