Phonics and Spelling

At St. Mary’s, reading is of high priority and begins in our Nursery. We want every child to start their journey to read with confidence, develop a love of reading and to apply their skills to their writing. Through the use of a rigorous assessment framework, we can monitor the progress of each child from Nursery right the way through to their completion of the phonics check in Year 1, and beyond for the children who aren’t able to pass first time. We also aim to build strong relationships with parents by giving them tools and guidance to support their children with their reading and understanding of phonics. At our school, reading is taught in accordance with the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Phonics programme. This promotes a robust and systematic emphasis on the teaching of synthetic phonics to aid the teaching and learning of reading and spelling.