Early Reading and Phonics (Little Wandle)
Early reading is taught through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme, ensuring asystematic, consistent and rigorous approachto phonics from the start of Reception.
Children are taught to:
- Recognise and blend sounds quickly and accurately
- Read decodable books that are closely matched to their phonics knowledge
- Develop fluency, confidence and enjoyment in reading
Reading practice books are carefully aligned to the sounds children have been taught, ensuring success and building confidence. Regular assessment ensures pupils who need additional support are identified quickly and provided with timely intervention.
We work in close partnership with parents and carers to support early reading at home. Further information about the Little Wandle programme, including guidance and videos for parents, can be found here:
https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/
Reading (KS1 and KS2)
Reading is at the heart of our curriculum and is carefully planned and sequenced across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 to ensure all pupils develop strong comprehension, fluency and a love of reading. Reading lessons are explicitly linked to our planned reading curriculum, which is built around high-quality, engaging texts that reflect a wide range of authors, genres and themes.
We use a VIPERS approach to reading comprehension, ensuring pupils are explicitly taught and regularly practise the key reading skills of:
- Vocabulary
- Inference
- Prediction
- Explanation
- Retrieval
- Summarising / Sequencing
Alongside comprehension, reading fluency is explicitly taught and prioritised. Pupils are supported to read accurately, at an appropriate pace, and with expression and intonation (prosody). Teachers model fluent reading, and pupils engage in a range of structured fluency activities, including repeated reading, echo reading, paired reading and oral rehearsal.
Through structured guided reading sessions, pupils learn how to explore texts deeply, discuss authorial choice, and justify their answers using evidence from the text. Vocabulary development is a key focus, enabling pupils to understand and use ambitious language across the curriculum, while fluent reading ensures pupils can access meaning confidently and independently.
Texts are carefully selected to challenge pupils appropriately while fostering enjoyment and engagement. Reading lessons promote rich discussion, purposeful questioning and the development of fluent, confident readers who can apply their reading skills across a wide range of contexts and subjects.