At St Ann’s we chose Little Wandle for our phonics scheme because we believe that all our children should be successful in becoming fluent readers and writers. Little Wandle is ambitious and places an emphasis on children’s phonic and comprehension skills as well as giving them a love of reading so that they will read for pleasure. Vocabulary is strategically planned into phonics and reading sessions to ensure children develop their understanding and can communicate their ideas in response to texts, as they develop a full range of comprehension skills, which provides equity for our many EAL and SEND learners.  

 

Equity is central to the Little Wandle approach as every child, regardless of starting point or barriers to learning is catered for until they become fluent readers.  Interventions are bespoke and change to meet the needs of individuals.  Little Wandle’s Rapid Catch-Up programme for children in year 2 and above has a range of quality, progressive and decodable texts, which have high interest levels appealing to older children. These texts include fiction and non-fiction covering a range of subject areas. The strong SEND programme allows us to support the phonics learning for our growing intake of children with complex needs. 

 

Staff become expert reading teachers through the high quality CPD, a rigorous approach to assessment which maintains a strong pace of learning, with a focus on keep up rather than catch up. The reading leader is supported to develop the reading team with access regular reader leader meetings, support for practice and coaching and online CPD tools.  

 

Resources are high quality and includes books that reflect children at St Ann’s as well as books that open windows into other cultures.  Most importantly, the driver for our choice of Little Wandle, is the research which underpins Little Wandle, aligns with our school pedagogy and approach for whole class reading in year 2 and above.   

 

*See Phonics and early reading policy adapted from Little Wandle.