EYFS & Year One

Our children make a strong start in Reception with the teaching of Phonics. Our EYFS teaching team consolidates the foundations of phonics before moving on to the reception programme of study which usually begins in Week Two of the Autumn Term.

Daily Phonics lessons in Reception and Year One

Our school teaches Phonics for 30 to 45 minutes a day.

• In Reception, we build from ten-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to full-length lessons as quickly as possible. These lessons are thirty minutes. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.
• In Year One, Phonics is taught twice a day: one thirty-minute lesson in the morning and one fifteen-minute consolidation lesson in the afternoon.
   

We follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised expectations of progress.
 

• Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy.
• Children in Year 1 review Phases 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy.
   

  Daily Keep-up

  Any child in Reception and Year One who needs additional practice has Daily Keep-up support and is taught by a fully trained adult. Daily Keep-up lessons follow the Little Wandle progression and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition so that every child secures their learning. These keep-up lessons ensure every child learns to read.

   

  Language and Nursery Rhymes

  Research tells us that nursery rhymes can support children to develop their language, their awareness of sounds within words and even their later reading (Bryant et al. 1989).
   

  We use the Little Wandle Rhyme time videos and accompanying phonological awareness planning to complement and reinforce our Phase 2 teaching of Phonics in Reception.

   

  Additional reading support for vulnerable children

• Children in Reception and Year 1 who are receiving additional phonics Daily Keep-up sessions read their reading practice book regularly to an adult in school.
• We prioritise children who may not have reading support at home or who may not have access to books. We ensure that they have individual reading times with volunteers and staff to share quality children’s literature to promote a love of reading.