Phonics & Reading Statement of INTENT

At Spire Nursery and Infant School, we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. We teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery and follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised progression, which ensures children build on their growing knowledge of the alphabetic code, mastering phonics to read and spell as they move through school. 

Children at Spire will access high quality, daily phonics teaching which will equip them with the skills to become successful and confident readers. Children will develop resilience, independence, and the ability to apply their skills, with a ‘have a go’ attitude, when faced with unfamiliar words. The regular and consistent approach to the teaching and learning of phonics in our school allows children to decode words more readily and this has a significant impact on reading fluency. We value reading as a key life skill and are dedicated to enabling our pupils to become lifelong readers. It is our intention to expose our pupils to a wide variety of high-quality texts, genres and authors through quality first teaching and learning. 

Through consistent, high quality provision children will foster a love of reading, a thirst for knowledge and become eager learners. 

We aim for all pupils to:  

• Develop an ability to communicate their ideas effectively and confidently. 
• Have the skills to decode words in order to be able to read fluently with an understanding of what they have read. 
• Develop confidence in reading a wide variety of genres and text types. 
• Read widely and often to develop a love for reading for pleasure. 
• Become confident, fluent readers with a good understanding of grammar and punctuation and in possession of a rich vocabulary  

At Spire, our aim is to implement this INTENT through quality first Teaching & Learning. 

Below you will find links to the different letters and sounds children learn from Phase 1 to Phase 6.

Phonics Toolkit Nursery

Phonics Toolkit Reception

Phonics Toolkit Year 1

Phonics Toolkit Year 2

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

There is also a glossary linked below of the terminology we use in our daily phonics sessions.

Phonics Terminology

Year 1 Statutory Phonics Screening Check

Every year in June, the Year One pupils take the National Phonic Screening check. The check consists of 20 real words and 20 pseudo-words that a pupil reads aloud to the teacher. Pseudo words, or 'alien-words', are words that that are phonically decodable but are not actual words with an associated meaning e.g. brip, snorb, twooch.

Pseudo words are included in the check specifically to assess whether your child can decode a word using phonics skills and not their memory. Although the check is not treated as a formal test, the children are expected to reach a benchmark level.

At Spire, our aim is to implement this INTENT through quality first Teaching & Learning.