We have a carefully considered and sequenced approach to early reading. 

This enables children working at Early Development level to build essential pre-reading knowledge, understanding and skills. These include early visual, auditory and motor skills; focus and attention skills; early communication skills; and memory and sequencing skills. These are developed by providing children access to high quality books and poetry, supported by concrete experiences. 

For children working at Emergent Concept level, foundations for reading are established through a clear focus on developing language comprehension and word recognition skills. This includes a focus on developing vocabulary, language conventions and background knowledge alongside phonological awareness. This is achieved through sharing high-quality stories and poems; learning a range of rhymes and simple poems; and activities that develop focused listening and attention, including Little Wandle Foundations for Phonics, focusing on Phase 1. 

Children working at Basic Concept and Applying Knowledge levels who have established pre-reading and foundations for reading skills are supported to become effective early readers. Children are supported to develop a love of reading through accessing a wide range of texts and genres and there is a continued focus on developing language comprehension skills alongside more formal decoding and automatic word recognition skills.  

We use the ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds' systematic synthetic phonics programme to ensure children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. Alongside our phonics programme, we use carefully matched ‘Big Cat’ decodable reading books in order for children to apply their phonics knowledge and be able to access high quality texts and read for pleasure later on.  

We are proud to be a Little Wandle Champion School.