Our Phonic & Reading Schemes
In Early Years and Year One, reading is taught using the phonics scheme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. Children take part in daily, short, focused phonics and spelling sessions within their classes and small groups, working at an aspirational pace to move each child on to meet their potential. Children are taught a cumulative progression of grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) that they immediately practise through oral blending, reading and spelling words and sentences. This is done through 3 weekly reads of the same book with an adult in school, focusing on decoding, prosody and comprehension. This books is then sent home with the child for further practice.
In Year Two, children recap previous phonic teaching, consolidate their segmenting and blending skills to become fluent readers. This means they read familiar words automatically without the need to sound out and blend. They do this using Collins Big Cat Fluency Chapter Books 3 times weekly with an adult focusing on decoding, prosody and comprehension. In addition, each child has a home reading book selected from the Big Cat Collins Reading Scheme, which are colour coded for ability to ensure progression and challenge.
In Year Three and Four, reading comprehension skills are taught explicitly to ensure the entirety of the National Curriculum is covered. During lessons, pupils are exposed to different texts and genres, learning a range of techniques which enable them to comprehend the meaning of what they read.
Home reading books are selected from the Collins Big Cat Reading Scheme as highlighted above. Competent and fluent readers may become free readers and choose their own reading material from the library.
Pupils learn how to:
- Explain the meaning of words in context
- Retrieve and record information from fiction and non-fiction texts
- Summarise the main ideas from more than one paragraph
- Make inferences from the text, explaining and justifying using evidence from the text
- Make comparisons within the texts
Our Handwriting Schemes
Children in YR follow the Little Wandle Handwriting scheme, focusing on a structured, non-cursive approach, teaching precise letter formation through specific, mnemonic-based phrases. It is aligned with the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds phonics programme, emphasizing correct letter sizing and placement on the line.
Children in Y1-4 follow the Penpals Handwriting scheme which offers clear progression through five developmental stages: physical preparation for handwriting; securing correct letter formation; beginning to join along, securing the joins and practicing speed, fluency and developing a personal style.