Vernon Primary School
Phonics
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We are delighted to let you know about some exciting new changes to our phonics teaching and early reading schemes. We have invested in a brand new, recently Government-validated phonics programme, ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’, along with a range of wonderful new reading books. The new programme and replenished resources will ensure that phonics at Vernon continues to be taught in a systematic, synthetic way.
At Vernon Primary, we use a systematic synthetic approach to teaching phonics because it offers the vast majority of young children the best and most direct route to becoming skilled readers. The children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 take part in a daily phonics session based on the same systematic synthetic programme, ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds’, using Collins Big Cat reading books. Children are taught phonics within their class and their progress is closely monitored and tracked.
Our programme overview shows the progression of Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence (GPCs) and tricky words that we teach term-by-term. The progression has been organised so that children are taught from the simple to more complex GPCs, as well as taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words. All the graphemes taught are practised in words, sentences, and later on, in fully decodable books. Children review and revise GPCs and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into their long term memory.
The links below are to three videos that show you how to pronounce the sounds. Notice how the children don’t add an ‘uh’ sound at the end, so they say: ‘t’ not ‘tuh’. Use the downloadable information at the bottom of the page to help your child remember how to write their letters and say their sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shlSQrleibs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKUEQFXXfYY&t=14s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxRMoHynvy0
At home to support your child's phonic and reading development, your child’s reading books will match their phonics phase of learning. Your child will bring home two types of reading books:
A reading practice book – This will match their phonic phase of learning. They should be able to read this fluently and independently.
A sharing book - This book is for you to share alongside your child and enjoy together.
Phonics Screening Check
The phonics screening check is a short assessment to confirm whether individual children have learnt phonic decoding to an appropriate standard. Children in Year 1 are required to complete a phonic screening assessment in the summer term. Children who do not reach the required standard at the end of Year 1 receive additional phonics teaching in Year 2 and will have the opportunity to re-sit the phonics screening test at the end of Year 2.
It is a statutory requirement for all schools to carry out the phonics screening check. Please follow the link below to see the previous phonics screening checks.