Sandwich Infant School

Where everyone is valued and learning is fun


At Sandwich Infant School, reading is a priority. From Reception, we teach phonics using the SSP Little Wandle Letters and Sounds revised. Daily phonic lessons follow a very specific sequence progression that allows our children to build on their previous phonic knowledge and master specific phonic strategies as they move through school. We take a consistent approach and maintain an appropriate pace of learning. As a result, all of our children are able to tackle and read any unfamiliar words that they might discover.

We believe that every child will learn to read, regardless of their background, needs or abilities. All pupils, including the weakest readers, will make sufficient progress to meet expected standards. All teaching staff are quick to identify any child that is not on track and that any gaps in phonic knowledge are addressed straight away through additional phonic lessons, catch up groups and frequent exposure. Our children are given opportunities to apply these strategies in reading and writing opportunities inside and outside of the phonic lessons.

     


Beyond Phonics

We teach children to embed their phonic knowledge through reading matched decodable books as soon as they can blend. Practice Reading sessions and home reader books support the children in becoming fluent readers.

Our Reading Practice sessions include the teaching of decoding, prosody and comprehension. Children take a close look at key vocabulary and learn how to understand and interpret the text through retrieval, inference, prediction, summarising, vocabulary and making links. They will learn how to answer questions about the text and apply their phonic and reading skills on a daily basis.

To promote our children’s love of reading, each class has a daily story time where all reading skills are modelled by our teaching staff. There are opportunities to read and discuss a wide range of genres, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

Enrichment

It is important that our children experience a number of reading enrichment activities so that they not only learn to read for pleasure, but to be confident in reading in all environments. The opportunities we provide include:


· Visits to Sandwich library where the children choose books to borrow

· Celebrating World Book Day

· Exposure to high quality texts in school

· Parent Book Share


Phonic Policy 

Phonic Progression Grid 

Phonics Intent, Implementation 

Reading Intent, Implementation




Support for Parents:

Phase 2 – Reception Autumn 1 graphemes.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Phase 2 – Reception Autumn 2 graphemes.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Phase 3 – Reception Spring 1 graphemes.

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

A guide to alien words

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

How we teach tricky words

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

How we teach blending

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/