Our Phonics Scheme is Little Wandle
At Chaloner, we are passionate in our belief that no child should leave school unable to read and write.
At Chaloner, we follow the Little Wandle Phonic Scheme which is a complete systematic synthetic phonics programme developed for schools, by schools. Teaching young children to read is achieved by expert teaching of phonics. Phonics is a method of teaching children to read by linking sounds (phonemes) and the symbols that represent them (graphemes or letter groups). Little Wandle provides an extensive teaching programme meeting all of the expectations of the National Curriculum to ensure children become fluent readers whilst preparing your children to go beyond the expectations of the Phonics Screening Check.
Alongside the daily phonics session, children participate in a reading session and practise their reading with a book matched to their phonic ability. We have ensured that our reading books are fully matched to the phonic scheme and pupils read books matched accurately to their phonic knowledge.
We love Reading!
Our aim is to develop a love of reading in all our children and we encourage reading to be an integral element of our whole curriculum and learning environment. Children are given the opportunity to read on a daily basis, sometimes with an adult and other times on their own. We have a rich variety of books for children to read in school which are carefully matched to children's reading ability and interests. Alongside our reading scheme all children can choose books from the class library or our school library.
Each term the children, with support from their teacher, select 10 new books to add to their class library. All teachers share a story with the children every day.
Children also need to be taught how to read in order to become fluent readers. There are two parts to teaching reading; Word Reading and Comprehension.
Word Reading
The children progress through a scheme of phonic based books. Each book a child reads is matched to their phonic learning in class and their independent decoding level. Children are heard read regularly to ensure the book is the right level for the child. Children do not just move through the scheme, the books are chosen for the right level of reinforcement and challenge needed.
Children should be fluent readers by Y3 and, by then, have moved away from a phonics scheme to age appropriate texts (there is some transition during the Autumn term where KS1 phonic learning is secured). For some children who still require decodable books we use Project Code X as an intervention scheme. The books have an age appropriate content with decodable words. It is a structured scheme with activities to secure their phonic understanding.
Reading Comprehension
Important comprehension skills are taught through shared and independent reading and class lessons. The focus of Reading is not only the ability to decode text, but also to show a clear understanding of what is happening in the book, through deep questioning and thoughtful prompting. In the Early Years and KS1, this is taught through class and group shared texts, the specific skills are also taught in reading comprehension lessons in KS1.
Through KS2 it is the main focus of the children's independent reading and class reading lessons. We use book bands to organise our scheme books into age appropriate text and children can choose from the class and school libraries.
Reading Dogs help children identify the type of comprehension skill needed to answer the question:
- Rex Retriever
- Inference Iggy
- Vocabulary Victor
- Cassie Commentator
- Summarising Sheba
- Predicting Pip
- Arlo Author
