Phonics and Early Reading

At Wykeham School, we believe there is no greater skill that we can teach a child than how to read fluently. Inspiring a genuine enjoyment of reading and exploring books opens your child to endless possibilities, whist forming the basis of their academic success and future lives.

Children follow a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together called phonics.  Children following the programme are taught to read using fully decodable books designed to help children enjoy reading, become fluent readers and develop their use, knowledge and understanding of phonics.

On this page we share how we implement phonics from Nursery through to Key Stage 1 and how children can be supported at home.

Nursery

To support all children to progressively read fluently and spell, we start in Nursery by developing children’s phonological awareness with spotting and suggesting rhymes; counting or clapping syllables in a word, recognising words with the same initial sound, such as money and mother. We also expose the children to environmental and instrumental sounds, body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration, voice sounds plus oral blending and segmenting.   

From Year 1 onwards, we use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme to start children on their reading journey.

What is the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme?

Its full name is the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Systematic Synthetic Phonics (LW) programme. This is a validated phonics and early reading programme.

How is Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised taught?

Phonics is taught daily, from Reception through to Year 1 and in Year 2/KS2 if it is needed using direct teaching methods.

Reception

Phonics teaching begins in Week 2 of the Autumn term. Children are taught to read and spell words with fluency and accuracy using Phase 2 and Phase 3 sounds, progressing to words with adjacent consonants in Phase 4, longer words and words ending in suffixes such as ing, ed, er and est. 

                                  Phase 2 letters and sounds                                             Phase 2 and 3 Letters and sounds

Examples of words containing adjacent consonants

*c = consonant         v = vowel

*c = consonant         v = vowel

Lessons start with 10 to 15 minutes sessions and over the year progress to 30 minutes.

These three videos show how to pronounce the sounds. Notice how the children do not add an ‘uh’ sound at the end, they say ‘t’ not tuh’. 

Click on each video below to play.

See also the downloadable information below on the taught sounds in Resources for Parents/Carers.

Year 1

Children will start Year 1 with a daily 30 minute lesson reviewing Phases 3 and 4, after which they are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 sounds, which are alternative pronunciation of known letters, with fluency and accuracy.

Click on the image below to watch how we say and teach the Phase 5 sounds.

Tricky words, Alien words and the Phonics Screening Check

We teach Tricky words from Reception to Year 1. Tricky words are words that, although decodable in themselves, cannot be decoded by children using the sounds they have been taught up to that point for example:

                 she    said     little    when     school

Click on the video below to see how we teach tricky words. 

There is more information in the Resources for Parent and Carers section below.

What is the Phonics Screening Check?

The Year 1 Phonics Screening Check is made up of 40 real words and 40 made up words known as pseudo words or alien words. These words check children’s knowledge of the letter sounds they have been taught. Each year, in Year 1 we start teaching Alien words in preparation for Check in June.

What are pseudo-words?

Pseudo words are simple, phonetically plausible words that do not occur in the English language but are used in the Phonics screening check to assess whether a child can correctly read a word they haven’t seen before, using phonic decoding.

By the time children take the check they will be familiar with these words. Non-words are included in the Check as children cannot read the non-words by using their memory or vocabulary; they have to use their decoding skills.

Click here to see how we teach alien words.

After the check

We feedback to Parents/Carers at the end of the last half-term of Year 1. Children who have not met the standard in Year 1 will retake the check in Year 2. We recognise that all children are individuals and develop at different rates. The screening check is one of the ways teachers identify the children who need extra help with phonic decoding.

Year 2 and across the school

Ongoing phonics support is provided in Year 2 for children who have not passed the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1 and phonics lessons are timetabled for any child in Year 3 to Year 6 with large gaps in their phonic knowledge. 

In Year 2 and KS2, although many children will usually have passed the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check some may still need practice in decoding unfamiliar words; reading familiar words ‘at a glance’ and need to build up their reading stamina before they can move on from reading the Little Wandle books. Children in Year 2 continue to read the Little Wandle books for the first half of the Autumn term, as do some children in KS2.

To see our Reception and Year 1 phonics teaching programme overview click here.

Early Reading

Children follow a method of learning letter sounds and blending them together to form words. Children following the programme are taught to read using fully decodable books designed to help children enjoy reading, become fluent readers and develop their use, knowledge and understanding of phonics.

Every week children will be provided with a new book to take home in their book bag that is linked to their progress. They will be able to read it to you as it contains only sounds that they have already learnt. Do also listen to your child reading the inside front cover of the book as this contains the tricky words and vocabulary contained in the book.

Parents are encouraged to write a comment in their Reading Record book each week, to show how their children / children have read their book.

Resources for Parents and Carers

In addition to the above resources these resources will help children remember how to say the sounds and write the letters:

• Reception Autumn 1 pronunciation guide (updated August 2023)
• Reception Autumn 2 sounds pronunciation guide (updated August 2023)
• Reception Spring grapheme information sheet
• Year 1 sounds
• How to write capital letters

These resources are especially for parents and carers:

• Everybody Read leaflet for parents
• Glossary of some of the words that are commonly used in phonics lessons – click here to see this resource