Phonics and reading

"We're teaching every child to read with Little Wandle Letters & Sounds"

Learning to read is the most important thing your child will learn at school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We want your child to love reading - which is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. 

Ashmole follows the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds scheme to teach phonics. Little Wandle is a Systematic Synthetic Phonics programme, which is an approach which teaches children to recognise letters (graphemes) and their associated sounds (phonemes). Your child begins learning phonics in Reception in preparation for their Phonics Screening Check in Year 1.

At Ashmole, we aim for pupils to be fluent readers by the end of Year 2. Pupils will follow the Little Wandle Phonics programme until the end of Year 1 and take home books matched to their phonics progression at this time. After children complete the Phonics Screening Check in Year 1, they will move to the Ashmole Home Readers system. All books contain all graphemes, but become longer and contain more multisyllabic words. Once your child's teacher judges they are ready, your child will have an assessment to become a Free Reader and take home a chapter books from their classroom book corner. 

The reading system has changed to ensure the books fully match the new phonics programme. Below is an overview of the new system.

Ashmole Home Readers

Children automatically move to Blue in Year 2 Autumn 1 after they have passed their Phonics Screening Check and adults assess that they do not need further intervention. 

CLICK HERE to find out more about what reading looks like for each year group. 

CLICK HERE to access some more FAQs on our new Phonics programme at Ashmole.