Phonics and Spelling
Phonics
At Cathedral we use the Little Wandle phonics program to get children off to a flying start with their literacy.
The Little Wandle phonics program is designed to teach children how to decode words, blend sounds, and build their reading skills from an early stage.
Daily Phonics Lessons
Phonics is taught every day in Reception and Year 1. These lessons focus on:
- Grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs): Children learn to associate letters or letter combinations (graphemes) with their corresponding sounds (phonemes).
- Blending: Children practice blending sounds together to form words, helping them decode unfamiliar words.
- Segmenting: Pupils also learn to break down words into their individual sounds for spelling.
- High-frequency words: Children are taught common tricky words that don't follow phonetic rules, such as "the," "said," and "come."
Guided Reading Sessions
In addition to daily phonics lessons, children in Reception and Year 1 also participate in small-group guided reading sessions three times a week. During these sessions, children:
- Decode words by applying their phonics knowledge.
- Develop prosody (the rhythm and flow of reading) by practicing reading with expression, appropriate pace, and understanding.
- Comprehend the text by discussing what they have read, focusing on both word-level skills and understanding the story.
The guided reading books are carefully matched to the child's phonics ability, ensuring that children can apply what they’ve learned in their phonics lessons to the text they are reading.
Home Reading Books
Each Thursday, children bring home the Little Wandle book they have been reading in school to share with their parents. These books are specifically chosen to match the child’s current phonics stage, providing an opportunity for practice and reinforcement at home. The book should be read aloud to parents and returned by the following Monday.
- Parents are encouraged to read the book with their child, supporting their decoding and fluency.
- The goal is for the child to practice and consolidate their phonics knowledge in a real reading context, with support from an adult.
Recommended Reads
In addition to the phonics-based book, children also take home a Recommended Read each week. This book is for shared reading with parents, but it is not for the child to read independently. The purpose of the Recommended Read is to:
- Foster a love of reading by exposing children to rich, engaging stories and vocabulary.
- Encourage shared reading experiences, where the parent can read aloud to the child, model fluency, and discuss the story together.
- Develop comprehension skills and a broader vocabulary beyond the phonics-focused books.
Consolidation in Year 2
In Year 2, phonics continues to be consolidated as children reinforce and extend their phonics knowledge. The focus is on:
- Advanced phonics patterns (such as different ways of spelling long vowel sounds, complex consonant clusters, and other more sophisticated spelling patterns).
- Reading fluency and comprehension: As pupils become more confident readers, the emphasis shifts slightly towards comprehension and the ability to read independently with expression and understanding.
Please see the links below to find out more about how you can support your child:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
How to Support Your Child's Reading
Reading opens the door to learning. A child who reads a lot will become a good reader. A good reader will be able to read more challenging material. A child who reads challenging material is a child who will learn. The more a child learns, the more he or she will want to find out.
Spelling
The spelling approach from Year 2 to Year 6 builds on the phonic knowledge pupils have been taught in EYFS and Year 1. Each week pupils are taught a new spelling rule which links to their writing task for the week. For example, the suffix ‘tion’ may be taught when pupils are learning about the water cycle so pupils are confident spelling key vocabulary such as evaporation, precipitation and condensation. Pupils will be sent home 5-10 words to practice following this rule and are challenged to find any other words which follow the same spelling pattern. Pupils will be tested on the words they have practiced and will be tested on a ‘mystery word’. When pupils can apply the spelling rule taught to unfamiliar words it then becomes embedded. Pupils will also be taught the statutory spellings for each year group to ensure they are confident spelling words which are often misspelt.
You can see year group expectations by clicking on the links below: