Parent workshop: Introduction to Little Wandle at the FIS

Teach reading: change lives

A love of reading is the biggest indicator of future academic success.

OECD (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)

How many times have you already read today?

Phonics

Phonics is:

making connections between the sounds of our spoken words and the letters that are used to write them down.

Terminology

Phoneme

Grapheme

Blend

Digraph

Segment

Trigraph

Adjacent consonant

Split digraph

Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised

Our school has chosen �Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised as our systematic, synthetic phonics (SSP) programme to teach early reading and spelling. 

What is taught when?

• Reception is our EY4
• Year 1 is our EY5
• Year 2 is our Grade 1

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• This year EY4-Gr.1 are using the main program.

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Grade 2 is using the Rapid Catch Up program.

• All students in EY5-Gr.2 have done a placement assessment
• Based on these results they are in differentiated phonic groups.

The progression

We teach Phase 2 in this order

Let’s say the Phase 2 sounds

Blending to read words

Let’s say the Phase 5 sounds

In Phase 5 children learn:

• new graphemes for the sounds they already know

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• that the same grapheme can have alternative pronunciations.

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• The ‘Grow the code’ lessons support children with reading and spelling these alternative spellings.

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Reading words

Children will be able to:

• blend independently.

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• blend in their heads with increasing fluency and confidence.

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• begin to distinguish between different phonemes/graphemes.

Tricky words 

Tricky words:

• have unusual spellings e.g. all, people

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• are taught in a systematic way
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• Click here to find documents for supporting your child in understanding why certain words are considered tricky (under “How We Teach” tab.

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How we make learning stick 

How do we teach reading in books?

Reading practice sessions are: 

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• timetabled three times a week
• taught by a trained teacher/teaching assistant
• taught in small groups.

We use assessment to match your child the right level of book

Reading a book at the right level

This means that your child should:

• know all the sounds and tricky words in their phonics book well
• read many of the words by silent blending (in their head) – their reading will be automatic
• only need to stop and sound out about 5% of the words by the time they bring the book home – but they should be able to do this on their own.

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Reading at home

The most important thing you �can do is read with your child

Reading a book and chatting had a positive impact a year later on children’s ability to…

• understand words and sentences
• use a wide range of vocabulary 
• develop listening comprehension skills.

The amount of books children were exposed to by age 6 was a positive predictor of their reading ability two years later.

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Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skills:  A five-year longitudinal study (2002) Senechal, M. and Lefvre, J

Listening to your child read their phonics book

• Your child should be able to read their book without your help.
• If they can’t read a word, read it to them.
• Talk about the book and celebrate their success.

One of the greatest gifts adults can give is to read to children

Carl Sagan