English

Phonics teaching begins in Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and continues throughout children’s time at Meadhurst. Teachers in EYFS and Key Stage 1 (KS1) use “Little Wandle” to aid them in the delivery of Phonics lessons. Little Wandle’s, step-by-step approach introduces the children to the 44 different sounds in the English language and their different spellings gradually and systematically. 

The Little Wandle’s scheme reflects the latest evidence-based understanding of how children learn. What this means for our children at Meadhurst is that the scheme is at the forefront of teaching and learning, enabling us to fully commit to our aim of providing the children with a strong foundation in early reading.

Little Wandle sessions, all follow the below four principles which help to ensure the optimum amount of learning for the maximum number of children.

1. Focused attention- short lessons with a regularity and elements repeated
2. Active engagement- continual expectation that children will respond in chorus and individually orally
3. Error feedback- children are immediately corrected if need be, but also praised when correct
4. Practise and consolidation- small items of learning are practised and repeated many times

Reading is complex: it is more than just word recognition. Comprehension plays a vital role in reading too. Comprehension starts without understanding of oral language and develops rapidly on the back of words and sentence reading.

This is why the Little Wandle approach also includes a clear “book reading” element to it. Children from autumn 2 in Reception and children from autumn 1 in Year 1, engage with three 20-minute reading sessions weekly with an adult. The children have books that have been carefully matched to children’s reading ability and include sounds that the children have been taught previously in class. In these sessions, the children develop three key skills:

1. Decoding
2. Prosody
3. Comprehension

This combined approach ensures that all children are read with regularly by an adult in school, in addition to developing core elements that will help the children in becoming fluent readers.

We provide an inclusive phonics environment that is reading rich. There are plenty of opportunities for children to apply their learning at initial sound level, word level and phrase level. For pupils who find it difficult to retain.

Children who require further support in Phonics will receive regular “keep-up” intervention (this could be daily or less frequent dependent on need). Children beyond Year 1 who have not met the threshold for phonics achievement, will take part in the “Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up” intervention, which supports children in mastering the phonic code and becoming fluent readers.

Assessment takes place daily, and teachers use their ongoing assessments to target children who may need additional practise with the learning on the same day, as far as possible. 

In Reception and Year 1, the children are assessed at the end of every half term using the Little Wandle assessments.

Towards the end of Year 1 (June) Year 1 children do the statutory Phonics Screening check which involves reading 40 words to assess how well the children can decode.

Children who do not meet the standard in Year 1, will have additional teaching in Year 2 and then sit the screening again in the June of their Year 2 year.

Children who need to consolidate their phonics skills beyond Year 2 will need catch up sessions and will be assessed in line with the Little Wandle scheme receiving intervention and teaching that is tailored to what they need.

Further information can be found on the Little Wandle Website.

In KS2 we use  “Layered Reading”, which is inspired by both EEF research and Doug Lemov’s ” Reading Reconsidered”. This means that we concentrate on developing children’s fluency, engagement and comprehension of texts through daily reading sessions. Texts are carefully selected so that they are progressive and challenging for each year group: the goal being to teach children how to comprehend beyond their comfort zone in addition to exposure to interesting texts to support developing a life-long love of reading. Text choice will at times complement learning that is happening in other areas of the class e.g. science information texts, history biographies and poetry. 

Children take part in a daily reading session where they go through “layers” of teaching in order to develop the above areas. They will experience high-quality modelling by adults which demonstrates to the children how to read with prosody. The children will read with their peers, building their own prosody and fluency through choral reading, echo reading and “jumping” in. Children will be taught with a “close reading” technique, which explores the text in great detail examining vocabulary and ascertaining meaning through use of grammar and word selection. This also builds comprehension. Throughout sessions children will be asked “quick questions” which are discussions points with their peers, culminating in a “Big Question” diving deeper into the texts with focus on the National Curriculum content domains of: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summary.

All classes also read regularly with their classes- details of class reads can be found on curriculum newsletters

Assessment in reading happens daily during reading sessions- this assessment helps to inform next steps in learning. 

Children also take part in regular comprehension assessments, using National Test-style Standardised (NTS) assessments, once per term which is reported to parents at parents’ evening or in end of term reports.