At Arno Vale Junior School, we are committed to supporting our children to become confident readers, whose enjoyment of reading is encouraged through encounters with a wide range of literature.

Parents Phonics Information Evening: Tuesday 10th January 2023

Thank you to those who came to the phonics information for parents, it was great to work with so many of you. 

If you were unable to attend, please see the presentation slides below. If you would like further information, please contact Miss Carter.

Phonics at Arno Vale

At Arno Vale Junior School, we have chosen to follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Scheme which has been accredited by the Department for Education. Drawing on recent research into phonics and early reading, this scheme explicitly teaches children the 44 individual sounds that make up the English language so that they can develop a secure knowledge of GPCs (grapheme-phoneme correspondence) and can decode unfamiliar words confidently. The aim of every phonics session is to develop fluency and so children are taught to blend sounds and to read with prosody so that they understand and enjoy what they are reading.

The Little Wandle programme is taught from Phase 2 to Phase 5 and is divided into half termly blocks which extend over 2 years. Children enter the intervention programme following referral by a class teacher or following reading assessments. Progression is built into the programme with children being closely monitored throughout and assessed on a half-termly basis.  

This scheme aims to ensure that children retain their phonics knowledge in their long-term memory and can use it in a variety of reading situations which will enable them to become confident, competent readers. To this end, reading practice sessions are included alongside phonics sessions during which children read books that are specifically matched to their secure phonics knowledge. We currently use the Collins Big Cat reading books for Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, a bank of 300 books providing a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books to stimulate the interest of the children. Little Wandle also provides a useful section for parents and carers on it’s website https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/