Our Vision

At Capel St Mary we want every child to be successful, fluent readers and writers by the end of Key Stage One and we believe that this is achievable through a combination of strong, high quality, discrete phonics teaching combined with regular, daily opportunities for developing reading skills. The teaching of phonics is a key strategy that is used to help our children to read, write and spell.

Little Wandle Letter and Sounds Revised

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sound Revised programme where children progress through four phases. In EYFS the children will be taught Phase 2 in the autumn term,  Phase 3 in the spring term and then Phase 4 in the summer term. In year 1 the children revisit the earlier phases and then they are taught Phase 5 digraphs in the autumn term. In the spring term the children are taught alternative sounds, and in the summer term we explore pseudo words. Our expectation is that all children will have secure phonic knowledge by the end of the year 1 and they will have completed the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme.  Year 1 children will undertake a phonics screening check in the summer term to ensure they meet the statutory requirements in phonics. 

Little Wandle Reading Books

The children will be given a fully decodable book to take home to read each week. They will have three reading sessions in school each week with the same book. The level of these books will be determined by a reading assessment that is carried  by the class teacher, and the expectation is that children can read 95% of the book accurately and without overt sounding and blending.

Parental support

Across EYFS and Key Stage One classes, parents are encouraged to read daily with their child. Regular reading at home should enable the children to use segmenting and blending techniques learned in phonics sessions, helping children to consolidate the knowledge they’ve gained in class. For further details please see the Unit One page.