Phonics
What Scheme is taught at Langafel?
At Langafel we use Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our complete synthetic phonics programme.
We have chosen this as our phonics programme because Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised draws on the latest research into how children learn best; how to ensure learning stays in children’s long term memory and how best to enable children to apply their learning to become highly competent readers.
This phonics programme sets out the following principles :
- Direct teaching in frequent, short bursts
- Consistency of approach
- Secure, systematic progression in phonics learning
- Maintaining pace of learning
- Providing repeated practice
- Application of phonics using matched decodable books
- Early identification of children at risk of falling behind, linked to the provision of effective keep-up support.
How do children progress through the Letters and Sounds?
Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised 2021: This programme overview shows the progression of GPCs and tricky words that we teach term-by-term. The progression has been organised so that children are taught from the simple to more complex GPCs, as well as taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words. All the graphemes taught are practiced in words, sentences, and later on, in fully decodable books. Children review and revise GPCs and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into their long-term memory. Children need to learn to read as quickly as reasonably possible, so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. Our expectations of progression are aspirational yet achievable if schools maintain pace, practice and participation by all children. Children who are not keeping up with their peers should be given additional practice immediately through keep-up sessions.
How are phonics taught to my child?
The children in EYFS will have discrete phonics teaching input daily by teachers and support staff. The sessions last between twenty and twenty-five minutes. There will also be constant and enhanced activities within the environment available for children to explore independently throughout the day.
Discrete daily phonics teaching of twenty to twenty-five minutes will continue in Key Stage 1 and be taught by teachers and support staff, with additional support staff available and utilised for smaller group work as necessary. There will also be constant and enhanced activities within learning for children to experience throughout the day.
What terms do I need to know to support my child?
The language for teaching phonics is specific here is a glossary of some common terms, if you have any specific questions please contact you teacher or our phonics leader (C Watkins).
Phonics is the knowledge of how alphabetic sounds work and how these sounds are combined to correspond to the spoken word.
It includes the skills of blending for reading and segmentation for spelling.
Blending is the skill of building words by merging phonemes together – this is used when reading words.
Segmentation is breaking down a word into its component phonemes –this is used when spelling words.
Phonemes are the smallest unit of sound in a word. It is generally accepted that there are different phonemes in the English language.
Graphemes are the written symbol of a phoneme.
Digraphs are phonemes written with two letters
Trigraphs are phonemes written with three letters
Split digraphs are two letters that make one sound, but the letters are not adjacent in a word (they are split by another letter e.g. i_e as in time).
High frequency words are the most commonly used words in the English language and if children can master these.
Alien words are made up words to test children’s ability to blend.
What is the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check?
At the end of Year 1 there is a statutory phonics check which takes place in June. (click here for more information) Children in Year 2 who did not meet the expected standard in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check, will be reassessed in Year 2.
To support children’s progress in Year 1 towards the required standard for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check children are assessed periodically throughout the year using previous years’ test materials.
This is a test of children’s ability to blend and read using the 44 phonemes. They are asked to read a series of real and nonsense or ‘alien’ words.
How can I support my child at home?
This link provides videos to support parents’ understanding of phonics, frequently asked questions about the Year 1 phonics screening and audio clips of how to pronounce each of the 44 phonemes (sounds).
These links are to games and activities parents can use with their children to support their phonic learning in school:
Where else can I get information?
Please feel free to contact either our Phonics Lead using this email or make an appointment to chat to your childs class teacher. However, the links below will also support you in DFE information booklet about the Year 1 phonics screening check.