Learning Phonics and Early Reading Skills at Wildmoor Heath

At Wildmoor Heath School, our staff are passionate about the teaching and learning of strong early phonics and reading skills. We recognise that reading is an essential life skill that opens up a whole world of information to young minds, from reading a menu to tackling a thesaurus. 

Therefore, we teach all our learners phonics from the start and the development of secure phonics and reading skills is a core part of the whole Wildmoor curriculum. Our philosophy is that ‘Every Child will be a Reader’ at Wildmoor Heath, regardless of when they join us, and we place great emphasis on achieving this aim. All teachers and Learning Support Assistants are trained to deliver high quality phonics sessions following a consistent and progressive methodology and sequence.

Our approach to teaching phonics

We teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic synthetic phonics programme.

We teach phonics for 30 minutes a day. In Reception, we build from 10-minute lessons, with additional daily oral blending games, to full-length lessons as quickly as possible. Each Friday, we review the week’s teaching to help children become fluent readers.

Continuous assessment and extra support

Children are assessed every six weeks to check progress and to identify gaps in learning that need to be reviewed or retaught. Children who require additional support will receive extra phonics sessions. 
We timetable phonics lessons for any child in Year 2 and above who requires further support or has not passed the Phonics Screening Check. 

How we promote a love of reading

We highly value reading for pleasure and work hard as a school to grow our reading for pleasure pedagogy. Reading for pleasure books go home for parents to share and read to children. Every classroom has an inviting book corner that encourages a love for reading. The school library is made available for classes to use. Children across the school have regular opportunities to engage with a wide range of Reading for Pleasure events (book fairs, author visits and workshops, national events etc).