Phonics at Days Lane Primary School

At Days Lane Primary School, we believe that learning to read is one of the most important skills a child will develop. We want every child to become a confident, fluent reader, who enjoys books and reading for pleasure. To support this, we follow the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) programme from Nursery through to Key Stage 1.

Little Wandle SSP teaches children to read and spell by explicitly linking sounds (phonemes) to letters or groups of letters (graphemes). Children learn how to blend sounds to read words and segment words to spell, with lessons taught daily in a clear, structured and consistent way. Reading books are closely matched to the sounds children are learning, ensuring success and confidence from the very start.

How Phonics Progresses from Nursery to Year 2

Phonics learning is carefully sequenced and builds gradually as children move through the school.

Phase 1 – Nursery

In Nursery, children focus on developing their listening skills. This phase lays the foundations for phonics by helping children to tune into sounds in the environment and in spoken language.

Children learn to:

• Listen to and identify environmental sounds (e.g. rain, traffic, instruments.
• Enjoy rhymes, songs and stories
• Hear and repeat patterns of sounds
• Begin to recognise alliteration and oral blending

Phase 1 does not involve letter learning but is vital in preparing children for reading and writing.

Phase 2 – Reception (Autumn Term)

Children begin learning letters and their sounds. They are taught to blend sounds together to read simple words and segment words to spell.

Children learn:

• Single-letter sounds (e.g. s, a, t, p)
• To read and spell simple words such as cat and pin
• To read simple captions and sentences
• A small number of tricky words that cannot be sounded out

Phase 3 – Reception (Spring Term)

Children are taught more complex sounds, including digraphs (two letters making one sound).

Children learn:

• Digraphs such as sh, ch, th, ai, ee
• To read and spell longer words and sentences
• More tricky words
• To read with increasing fluency and confidence

Phase 4 – Reception (Summer Term)

This phase consolidates learning and focuses on reading and spelling words with adjacent consonants (e.g. lamp, frog, desk).

Children learn to:

• Blend and segment longer words
• Read more fluently
• Apply their phonics skills confidently in reading and writing

No new sounds are introduced in Phase 4.

Phase 5 – Year 1 and Year 2

In Phase 5, children learn that some sounds can be spelled in more than one way and that some letters can make different sounds.

Children learn:

• Alternative spellings for sounds (e.g. ai as in rain, ay as in play)
• Alternative pronunciations (e.g. ea in bread and seat)
• A wider range of tricky words
• To read longer and more complex texts with fluency

By the end of Phase 5, children are well prepared for the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check and to move confidently into independent reading and spelling in Key Stage 2.

Supporting Your Child at Home

Parents play a vital role in supporting phonics and reading. We encourage children to read their fully decodable Little Wandle reading books for 10 minutes daily at home and to practise saying the sounds correctly. We provide workshops, guidance and resources to help you understand how phonics is taught and how best to support your child’s reading journey.

By working together, we aim to give every child the strongest possible start in reading and writing.