At Talbot Primary School, we believe that all of our pupils can become fluent readers who develop a love of books. We aim to nurture an early love of reading amongst our pupils so that they value reading as a vital life skill. This journey begins with Phonics.

Phonics is taught in our school by following the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised - a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. Through this approach we achieved a 95% success rate in the Phonics Screening Check in 2024 - an achievement we are very proud of. Phonics is taught daily in EYFS and KS1 - this includes a session of Phonics as well as a Reading session later in the day where all children are heard read 1:1.

The progression of Little Wandle has been organised so that children are taught from the simple to more complex GPCs, as well as taking into account the frequency of their occurrence in the most commonly encountered words. All the graphemes taught are practised in words, sentences, and later on, in fully decodable books. Children review and revise GPCs and words, daily, weekly and across terms and years, in order to move this knowledge into their long term memory. Children need to learn to read as quickly as reasonably possible, so they can move from learning to read, to reading to learn, giving them access to the treasure house of reading. 

Pupils who struggle with the pace of sessions will begin to undertake 'Keep Up' sessions in small groups that help them to fill any gaps in their phonic knowledge. Pupils with more significant gaps will take part in 'Rapid Catch-Up' sessions which cover a large amount of content over a shorter time, allowing them to maintain pace with their peers.

Reading at Home

As part of the program, pupils will have 3 reading sessions per week with books which match each child’s phonic level. During these reading sessions all children are heard read by an adult who will support theme with their decoding (using their phonic knowledge to sound out words) and prosody (reading with expression). At the end of the week, pupils then take these books home to share their reading success with their adults.

Your child's Year Group will inform you of book change days.

Please see the video below for advice on reading with your child at home...

Please also see the Little Wandle website for a range of useful resources including videos that will help you support your child with saying their sounds and writing their letters and feel confident about supporting their reading at home. Find our full Reception and Year 1 teaching programme overview here to see what your child will learn and when.

Please find at the bottom of the page a glossary of terms used in the teaching of Phonics as well as an overview of the program.