English

Phonics and Early Reading Statement of Intent 

At St Bernadette’s Primary we use the phonics scheme ‘Little Wandle’  for our phonics and early reading scheme of work.

At St Bernadette’s, we intend for children to become enthusiastic and motivated readers; to develop children’s confidence in reading a wide variety of genres and text types; for children to have the skills to decode words in order to be able to read fluently with understanding of what they have read; to encourage a love of literature and an enjoyment of reading for pleasure and to use reading to provoke thought within children.

Supporting your child with reading

Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home.

There are two types of reading book that your child may bring home:

A reading practice book. This will be at the correct phonic stage for your child. They should be able to read this fluently and independently.

A sharing book.  Your child will not be able to read this on their own. This book is for you both to read and enjoy together.

Reading practice 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.

Listen to them read the book. Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success! If they can’t read a word, read it to them. After they have finished, talk about the book together.

Sharing book

In order to encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure. The sharing 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, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters, explore the facts in a non-fiction book. The main thing is that you have fun!

Phonics Jargon Busters:

Pure Sounds – pronouncing the sounds of letters and combinations of letters correctly, for example not saying ‘muh’ but ‘mmmmm’. Avoid trying to say an ‘uh’ at the end of the sound. I uploaded a video to the Facebook page showing how to pronounce the sounds in Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Oral blending – hearing a series of sounds and merging them together to say the word, for example an adult says ‘b-u-s’ and the child says ‘bus’.

Blending – children see a word, say those individual sounds in the word and then merges those sounds together to hear the whole words like
c-a-t makes ‘cat’. This is vital for reading.

Segmenting – the opposite to blending. Children break up the word into its component sounds. This is vital for spelling and writing words.

Phoneme – The smallest unit of sound. There are approximately 44 in the English language to learn.

Grapheme – the written form of a phoneme. They can be made up of different numbers of letters for example 1 letter – s, 2 letters – ai, 3 letters – igh.

Digraph – two letters that make one phoneme, for example oo, oa, ee

Trigraph – three letters that make one phoneme, for example ear, igh, air

Split digraph – perhaps you know this as the’magic e’? It is when a digraph (ie) has been split and a consonant has been placed in the middle. The ‘ie’ is still making the sound despite a letter in the middle. There are five split digraphs to learn
i_e like in time
a_e like in cake
o_e like in joke
e_e like in theme
u_e like in tube

Decoding/decodable – being able to ‘sound out’ the word into its componant phonemes.

Polysyllabic – a word that is made up of more that one syllable.

Tricky words – there are words within each of the phonics phases that cannot be decoded and sounded out. These words just need to be learnt by sight. Sometimes a tricky word taught within a phase can become a decodable word once your child moves up the phases, for example ‘out’ and ‘like’

High Frequency words – these are words that occur most often in books and stories. They can be both decodable or tricky words.

Non-words/Alien Words – Words that can be decoded but are made up and do not make sense. These words really test phonics skills. If a child has good phonic knowledge they will be able to decode both real and alien words.

Sound buttons – a button drawn or placed under each individual grapheme. Every time the button is pressed your child makes the sound and then blends all the sounds together to read the words. The word ‘cat’ would have three dot sounds buttons and ‘moon’ would also have three but the ‘oo’ would have a longer line button underneath.

CVC – Consonant, vowel, consonant. These can be simple three letter words like ‘mat’ but also the word ‘rain’ is a CVC word as the ‘ai’ is a vowel digraph in the middle. This is the same for words like moon, chain, sheet. The ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ are a consonant digraph and one sound. The word ‘boy’, for example, even though has 3 letters is not a CVC word as it only has two phonemes b-oy. This is the same for words like cow, tie, say.

Alliteration – words that begin with the same phoneme (snake, sock, scissors, star)

Letter formation – the way each individual letter is formed. Children will need to learn where they need to start for each letter.

Please find attached:

• guidance on how to support your children with the letter and blending sounds using the links below
• our phonics progression overview (Little Wandle)
• our Phonics and Early reading intent, implementation and impact.

*Please refer to the Phonics and Early reading policy from our policies page for guidance in the methods your child will be taught in school. Should you require further explanation please do not hesitate to contact a member of staff.