Phase 6 phonics takes place throughout Year 2, with the aim of children becoming fluent readers and accurate spellers.

Our Foundations section includes a complete offer for Nurseries, which includes guidance, training and resources for three areas: Foundations for Phonics, Foundations for Language and Foundations for a Love of Reading. These three parts of the programme work together to provide you with everything you need to prepare your children for phonics teaching in Reception. They include a huge range of short, fun activities supporting pupils’ language development, story reading, phonological awareness and oral blending. ‘How to’ videos, training and prompt cards help you ensure your team is confident delivering these activities. Although your child will be taught to read at school, you can have a huge impact on their reading journey by continuing their practice at home. The Little Wandle phonics scheme consists of six phases, each building on the skills learned in the previous phase: Phase Two: In this phase, children are introduced to letters and their corresponding sounds. They learn how to blend sounds together to form simple words, such as “cat” and “dog.”

Latest Posts

At The Lancaster School we believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme. We start teaching phonics in Nursery/Reception 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. We ensure Nursery children are well prepared to begin learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs) and blending in Reception. Any child who needs additional practice has daily Keep-up support, taught by a fully trained adult. Keep-up lessons match the structure of class teaching, and use the same procedures, resources and mantras, but in smaller steps with more repetition, so that every child secures their learning. Children in Year 1 review Phase 3 and 4 and are taught to read and spell words using Phase 5 GPCs with fluency and accuracy. Children entering Year 2 will start Phase 6 which develops a variety of spelling strategies including word specific spellings e.g. see/ sea, spelling of words with prefixes and suffixes, doubling and dropping letters where necessary. Also the accurate spelling of words containing unusual GPC's.

We use the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to engage our families and share information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops. We provide a balance of child-led and adult-led experiences for all children that meet the curriculum expectations for ‘Communication and language’ and ‘Literacy’. These include:Children learn new graphemes (different ways of spelling each sound) and alternative pronunciations for these: for example, learning that the grapheme ‘ow’ makes a different sound in ‘snow’ and ‘cow’. Children in Reception are taught to read and spell words using Phase 2 and 3 GPCs, and words with adjacent consonants (Phase 4) with fluency and accuracy. Phase Three: Children learn additional sounds and how to blend them together to form more complex words, such as “ship” and “chat.”

My DS is currently reading at the hardest end of Phase 2 (summer born reception) which probably equates to the easier end of red books using the list someone linked earlier. This book has been carefully matched to your child’s current reading level. If your child is reading it with little help, please don’t worry that it’s too easy – your child needs to develop fluency and confidence in reading.

Progression through the Phases

However since moving to little waddle she has to read as part of a group and is therefore now having to read phase 5 books which seems to be where the rest of the class is which is no challenge at all and she finds it easy and the books boring. Children should now be spelling most words accurately (this is known as ' encoding'), although this usually lags behind reading. They will also learn, among other things: Phase Six: This final phase focuses on developing children’s reading comprehension and writing skills. Children are introduced to more complex texts and learn how to write sentences and paragraphs. Phase 5 generally takes children the whole of Year 1. ‘Here, we start introducing alternative spellings for sounds, like 'igh',” says Sara. ‘Children master these in reading first, and as their fluency develops, we begin to see them using them correctly in spelling.’

This really depends on the setting. For example, we have seen whole class teaching work well in schools with a high % of EAL children where word meaning is taught as blending and reading are taught. Using Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised with SpLd children will be more about what exact conditions a school is working with. ASC children are very able to join the whole class teaching with the right adaptations in place – those would be part of your classroom practice. However, for some children it may be best for them to be part of the main lesson and then work with an adult. A sharing book. Your child will not be able to read this on their own. This book is for you both to read and enjoy together. Phase Five: Children learn alternative spellings for sounds they have already learned, as well as new sounds and spellings. Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

Renew your subscription today and save 20%!

Phase One: This phase focuses on developing children’s listening skills, including their ability to hear and distinguish between different sounds. Here at The Lancaster School, we believe there is no greater skill that we can teach a child than how to read fluently and for enjoyment, thus opening a world of endless learning possibilities and academic success. We understand that if children have a positive start with early reading and phonics it will have endless benefits across all areas of learning. Numerous studies have shown when children learn to read at an early age, they have greater general knowledge, expand their vocabulary, become more fluent readers, develop problem solving skills, grow in self-confidence and flourish with creativity and their imagination. A reading practice book. This will be at the correct phonic stage for your child. They should be able to read this fluently and independently. Phase Four: In this phase, children learn to read and write words with consonant clusters, such as “spoon” and “splash.” books are matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids.