English - Phonics

It is important early in life to acquire the power of reading sense wherever you happen to be.

C S Lewis

At Victoria, we believe that reading is the key to success and underpins children's access to the curriculum as it clearly impacts on their achievement. To be able to read, children need to be taught an efficient strategy to decode words. That strategy is phonics. Phonic decoding skills must be practised until children become automatic and fluent reading is established. 

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme (SSP) and it is the programme that we adopt at Victoria. We prioritise the teaching of phonics and we teach phonics daily in Reception and Year 1. In addition we start teaching phonics in Nursery with Little Wandle Foundations to support early language development. 

It is vitally important that children review and revisit Grapheme Phoneme Correspondences (GPCs) and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into the children's long term memory. Our consistent approach to phonics ensures that children are given the best possible foundation for reading, writing and language skills. 

Children need to learn to read as quickly and reasonably as possible, so that 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; children who are not keeping up with their peers are given additional practice immediately through keep-up sessions.

On-going assessment of children's progress takes place and the books children read in school and take home to read are fully decodable and matched to children's secure phonics knowledge. As well as fully decodable books, children take home a non-decodable book for sharing that can be either read to or with them. These books play an essential role in developing a love of reading; an important distinction is that these books are being shared with the children, but they are using fully phonically decodable books to practise their independent reading.

Please click the link below to find information videos about how we teach phonics and how to support your child with reading at home.

Little Wandle Guide for Parents

• How to say Phase 3 sounds
• How to say the Phase 5 sounds
• Little Wandle Everybody read parents presentation Jan 2024.pptx
• Phonics screening check 2023 information for parents
• Programme Overview Reception and Year 1
• Pronunciation guide Autumn 1 Phase 2
• Pronunciation guide Autumn 2 Phase 2
• Reception overview Little Wandle
• Tricky words for parents Phase 2
• Tricky words for parents Phase 3
• Tricky words for parents Phase 5
• Year 1 overview Little Wandle