Grapheme Chart for Year 1: Phases 2, 3 and 5 (Big Cat Phonics for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised)

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For more information about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, book your free spot for their first briefing of the new school year on 2nd September 2021 at 3.45pm. Lots of opportunities should be provided for children to engage with books that fire their imagination and interest. Enjoying and sharing books leads to children seeing them as a source of pleasure and interest and motivates them to value reading. Phase 1 of Letters and Sounds usually begins at Nursery and Preschool age. Children are introduced to the skills they will need to then begin recognising and identifying their letters and corresponding sounds. Children begin to learn the phonemes and corresponding graphemes from Phase 2 of the Letters and Sounds scheme during Reception. They will then progress through the phases usually within Key Stage 1 of Primary School. Each phase is made up of sets of phonemes so children are introduced to a few sounds at a time, progressively getting more complex as they build their knowledge and skills. Collins Big Cat Phonics - Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised | Big Cat for Little Wandle Fluency Sets

It is really important that the sounds are said clearly and without any other sound attached. When sounds are not said correctly, it can confuse children and they can sometimes struggle to put the sounds together to make the word. To start, children are immersed in activities which promote listening to environmental and instrumental sounds, body percussion, rhythm and rhyme, alliteration and voice sounds. They then begin oral segmenting and blending of familiar words, embedding their learning within language-rich provision and activities. Children will often be secure with this stage when they leave pre-school. Children then begin to distinguish between speech sounds and blend and segment words orally. They will learn the letter names (grapheme) and sound (phoneme) of each letter of the alphabet, then begin to represent each of 44 phonemes by a grapheme blending to read. Children then broaden their knowledge of graphemes and phonemes, learning alternative pronunciations. Children progress to read longer and less familiar texts independently and with increasing fluency.

Phonics at St Stephen's

We support this further from year 2 and in Key Stage 2 with our spellings programme and weekly SPAG lessons in Year 3 upwards. We continue to support children with ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ through Key Stage 2 where needed.

A lot of things will remain the same. The children are already having daily phonics sessions. Reception will continue with this session but Year 1 will now have 2 sessions per day. Segmenting –identifying the individual sounds in a spoken word and being able to write down the letters for each sound i.e. him h-i-m. We will no longer to individual reading in class. The children will have 3 reading sessions a week with a teacher or TA. Each reading session will focus on different things. Childrencould cut out any graphemes they find in magazines or newspapers and use them to spell words. Play splat. Choose graphemes/words (about 5 or 6) to write on a piece of paper and then call out one of the words. The first one to 'splat' the correct word or grapheme wins a point. Change words/graphemes after a certain time.

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I know this is a lot of information so if you have any questions then please ask. We offered a google meeting to share this information and to answer any questions. Bingo. Children should divide paper into 6 sections and write a grapheme in each. You may then choose flashcards (either home-made or printed) for the children to cross off their board. Give bonus point if they can say the sound before you do. The same game can be adapted to play with real or nonsense words. As they learn different spellings they ‘grow the code’ and learn to use grapheme charts to help them choose the right spelling. These will be used later in the year. Children in year 2 and beyond also take part in similar reading practise or guided reading sessions every week to develop their reading skills once they are secure with phonics. As the children revisit the phase 3 graphemes they will learn a catchphrase to match the sounds. These become even more important when we start learning alternative spellings for the same grapheme.

A colour book-banded reading book which is fully decodable. Children should be able to sound out any words that they are unsure of, enabling them to build further confidence when reading. This continues our practice of children taking home a physical book, matched to their reading level. Practise– using the sound in words – Spotting the new phoneme in words, modelling blending and then allowing the children to read words with the new sound from flashcards? A booklet titled ' St Francis Church of England Primary School - EYFS.KS1 Reading Procedures LW.LS' is another useful document that will highlight how our phonics and early reading teaching weaves together. This is the focus on children applying their phonics knowledge into reading books. At Hampton Hargate Primary, children begin to read in Reception using Phonics. We use the DfE approved systematic synthetic Phonics (SSP) scheme, ‘Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised’ , where children concentrate on speaking and listening skills, preparing them for learning to read by developing their phonic knowledge and skills. We teach with each book three times and through this repeated reading children are taught to read with expression and understanding. This means that the books we use need to be of the best quality. They need to be fully decodable and matched to our progression, but they need to connect with our children too. If we want our children to see reading as something that is worth putting all that hard work into, then we need to make learning to read worth it. Books should be mirrors of our lives and doors that open into the world, even the very first books we teach children to read with. If we make learning to read a pleasure and children feel that reading has purpose then we are fostering readers for life.We would encourage you to support your child’s reading journey by listening to them read at home as often as possible.