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Phonics

Phonics at Osbaldwick Primary Academy

At Osbaldwick Primary Academy, we are committed to ensuring that every pupil will learn to read regardless of their background, needs or abilities. We see being able to read as a skill that improves a child’s life chances and one that is essential for full access to all curriculum subjects. We want children to develop a genuine love of books and a thirst for literature though reading books written by a wide range of authors.

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised – Systematic, Synthetic Phonics Programme

We teach early reading through the systematic, synthetic phonics programme Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Right from the start of Reception, children have a daily phonics lesson which follows the progression for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds and this continues in Year 1 to ensure children become fluent readers. All teachers and teaching assistants have completed training modules provided by Little Wandle and have regular CPD to ensure a whole school understanding of the approach.

Daily Phonics Lessons

Phonics is the learning of individual sounds and then applying this to blending sounds to read words. Through daily lessons and repeated practice, a child’s phonic knowledge and skills become more automatic, leading them to become, over time, fluent and competent readers. Every day, Reception and Year 1 have a phonics lesson where previous sounds are revised both as letter sounds and within words. New sounds are then taught in isolation and read in words. Tricky words, spellings and a dictated sentence are also taught, developed and practised within this phonics lesson. 

Regular assessments take place through Reception and Year 1 to help inform future teaching and identify children who have gaps in their phonic knowledge and need additional practice. Daily assessment of learning also takes place within the classroom so that staff can quickly identify any children who need ‘Keep Up’. Across all key stages at Osbaldwick, children are given the opportunity to develop their decoding skills until they are able to read fluently. 

See the Reception and Year 1 overview to see which GPCS and tricky words are taught when:

Fully Decodable Books

In conjunction with daily phonics lessons, children must read books that are consistent with their phonic knowledge. These books are carefully and precisely matched to the child’s secure phonic level to ensure a reading fluency level of 90%. Children in Reception and Year 1, read fully decodable books with an adult at least 3 times per week during our ‘Reading Squads’ sessions. These 3 reading practice sessions each have a different focus; decoding, prosody and comprehension. Books are then taken home for children to build their reading fluency and showcase their developing skills and phonetic knowledge to their parents/carers.

Resources for Parents 

On the Little Wandle website, there are some excellent resources for parents and carers in the ‘For Parents’ section. 

On the main page, you will find videos of how to correctly pronounce the sounds that each letter makes, the correct formation of each letter and how to write capital letters. There are also short videos explaining how Little Wandle is taught within our school and also a section on how you can most effectively support your child at home with their reading. In addition to this, there are links to the nursery rhyme videos that are used in Nursery as part of the Foundations for Phonics programme. 

Please do take the time to have a look at these resources following the link below:

Please also see our Phonics and Early Reading Policy for more details:

Sharing Books

As well as bringing home a decodable reading book after the third read, the children will also bring home a sharing book from the school library. Sharing books will be of a higher level than the child’s reading ability and will be a book for parents/carers/other family members to read to the child for enjoyment. 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! We suggest as much reading for pleasure as possible to encourage a love of books as well as developing vocabulary and discussion.