In the Spring Term, children will progress through Phase 3 of the programme, learning many new phonemes and graphemes including digraphs (2 letters making 1 sound, and trigraphs, 3 letters making 1 sound). Children start phase 2 of the Little Wandle phonics programme as soon as possible after starting Reception, usually week 2 of the Autumn term when children are settled in their new surroundings. Every teacher in our school has been trained to teach reading, so we have the same expectations of progress. This could be done by using pictures, missing words in sentences, fill in the missing sounds, make words with the sound using letters displayed.

This system judges the level of difficulties based on how many letters per word, how many words per page, how many lines per page, how many pages per book not on reading progression. At Wooburn Green Primary School, it is our aim that every child will learn to read, no matter what barriers they may have to their learning. I know they all develop differently etc etc but just keen to have a broad idea if DD is where she should be for her age. The school I teach at swapped to little wandle at the start of the year and we've had to reorganise, give away and purchase new books. All children have daily opportunities to read a variety of material in school, including regularly with an adult.

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Big Cat Little wandle books are linked directly to the phonics progression of sounds and tricky words taught. The resources on this page will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters. It comprises classroom resources to support the SSP programme and a range of phonic readers that together provide a consistent and highly effective approach to teaching phonics. From September 2023, Little Wandle introduced a Phonics and spelling programme Year 2 consisting of daily lessons. Pupils in EY and KS1 are given reading books each week, which directly link to the phonics sounds they are being taught so that phonics knowledge is consolidated.Interestingly, we’ve just had a book home that is “not decodable at any point using Little Wandle” according to this spreadsheet, but the book is branded as Phase 4 Little Wandle! We aim to promote reading for pleasure, and hope to instil this love of reading in all children through the culture of our school.

They also assess when children are ready to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme, which is when they read the final fluency assessment at 90+ words per minute. In Reception, children have access to the reading corner every day in their free flow time and the books are continually refreshed. We offer a 20% built-in discount and free protective jackets to ensure your new books withstand the rigours of the home-school book band programme for as long as possible. The old book banding system is organised by criteria matched to the 3 cueing method not to phonics and is pretty meaningless.Little Wandle is only Letters and Sounds repackaged after the DfE admitted the original version wasn't fit for purpose so most of the phonic books written to match Letters and Sounds should be suitable. Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised is validated by DfE (June 2021) and is included on their list of approved SSP programmes. the Rapid Catch-up fluency assessments when children are reading the Phase 5 set 3, 4 and 5 books for age 7+. This is a much faster paced and age appropriate version of the Little Wandle scheme which enables children to access age appropriate reading and therefore the full curriculum much more rapidly, and also prepares them for the KS3 curriculum when they move onto secondary school. As far as I can see, the 7+ books look to just be the same phases but aimed at older kids (ie more age appropriate content for kids with a lower reading age than their age).

Year 1 class teachers will hold a meeting for parents in the Spring term to ensure that parents feel confident in supporting their children during the phonics screening check. They learn how to ‘grow the code,’ learning that there are different ways to represent the different phonemes that they learnt in Reception.

At Wooburn Green, we understand that being able to read is the most crucial skill that we can teach our children as without it they will find it increasingly difficult to access other areas of the curriculum and their life chances will be significantly reduced. There may be a number of reasons why children in Year 2 and beyond are not yet able to decode confidently or read fluently. I too don’t really like the uncertainty of this being a new scheme not directly comparable with the old book bands as it’s harder to choose what books to read together at home of a similar level. For Year 1 children, this is when they read the final fluency assessment at 60–70+ words per minute. 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.