Little Wandle and Early Reading

We are very excited to share with you a new venture that we are about to embark on as a school. Following a recent change in government guidance we have decided to invest in a brand-new scheme for teaching early reading in our school. This will impact the way that both phonics and reading are taught, particularly in Reception and Year One.

Phonics will continue to be taught daily to all children but will be taught following a newly released phonics scheme called ‘Little Wandle-Letters and Sounds revised’. This is a very thorough and very rigorous programme which teaches the children the skills they need to read. All children will be working alongside peers with a similar secure phonic knowledge. Alongside our daily phonics lessons, each child will take part in three reading practice sessions a week. We have been lucky enough to buy sets of wonderful new early reading books which are fully decodable for the children and entirely matched to the phonics scheme.

Children will be reading in small groups and will read the same book three times with adults in school before bringing it home to read with you. Each read in school will have a different focus: 

 · Decoding – using phonics skills to blend words. 

 · Prosody- reading with rhythm, stress, and intonation.  

· Comprehension – developing their understanding of the text.  

When the children read the book with you at home it will be to ‘show off’ the skills they have learnt so you can see the wonderful progress they are making. We will be sending these books home and we kindly ask that you take great care of them and remember to return to school on your child’s book changing day. This book will be sent out on a Thursday and must be returned on the following Monday. It is of paramount importance that these books are returned each week and are in good condition because these books will be needed for other children, and we don’t want this to hinder children’s reading progress because we are missing 1 or 2 books within a set.

Supporting your child with reading is very important and although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home. ALL Reception and Year 1 children will be bringing home three different books each week: A reading practice book (Little Wandle), a sharing book and a library book.

The Little Wandle book - this will be at the correct phonic stage for your child. They should be able to read this fluently and independently. This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading. Listen to them read the book. Remember to give them lots of praise – celebrate their success! If they can’t read a word, read it to them. After they have finished, talk about the book together.
A sharing book- your child will not be expected to read this on their own because this book is for you to read and enjoy together. To encourage your child to become a lifelong reader, it is important that they learn to read for pleasure.
The third book sent home is a Library book which your child has chosen on their visit to our school library. Please remember that you shouldn’t expect your child to read these books alone. Read it to or with them. Discuss the pictures, enjoy the story, predict what might happen next, use different voices for the characters; explore the facts in a nonfiction book. The main thing is that you have fun! REMEMBER children are never too old to be read to! Interesting facts:- Here’s how many words children would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to: 4,662 words; 1–2 times per week: 63,570 words; 3–5 times per week: 169,520 words; Daily: 296,660 words; and five books a day: 1,483,300 words. This demonstrates how powerful what you do at home impacts on your child’s speaking into reading into writing!