Phonics/Early Reading
At Dinting we use ‘Little Wandle’ to teach phonics as we know that using one scheme consistently produces good or better readers.
We teach the children in groups so that every child is exposed to the phonemes and graphemes which are at the expected level for their age. Children in Reception are taught Phase 2 up until Christmas. From January they begin working on Phase 3 and then they spend the second half of the Summer term working on Phase 4. Children in Year 1 begin working on Phase 5 and children in year 2 begin working on spelling patterns.
We regularly assess children using Little Wandle’s phonics tracking system. This data is used to help us identify children who need a little bit of extra help to keep up. Interventions are carefully planned to meet the needs of individual children.
Children are taught how to break down words into their individual sounds in order to read and how to segment words into their individual sounds in order to spell them in their writing.
KS2 children who still require phonics input will be taught in very small groups.
All Year 1 children will complete a phonics screening check in June. The result of this check will be reported at the end of the year.
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Statutory Phonics Assessments
Towards the end of Year 1 all children will complete the Phonic Screening Assessment. This is a statutory assessment that will be carried out by teaching staff at school. The phonics screening check is designed to confirm whether pupils have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. It will identify pupils who need extra help to improve their decoding skills. The check consists of 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words that pupils read aloud to the check administrator. Children who do not meet the phonic screening assessment threshold in year 1 will have the opportunity to repeat this assessment in Year 2. Outcomes of this test will be reported to you through your child’s end of year report.