At St. Mary's we use Collins Big Cat Phonics books. There are 120 fully decodable readers available to support the SSP programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised. The books are matched perfectly to the Little Wandle progression and support all the Letters and Sounds phases. This progression is based on the DfE's publication 'Letters and Sounds: Improving Rates of Progress 2021'. There are an exciting mix of stories and non-fiction to foster a love of reading in all children. 

Teaching reading: Reading practice sessions three times a week

• We teach children to read through reading practice sessions three times a week. These:

  • are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children

• use books matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised assessments and book matching grids on pages 11–20 of ‘Application of phonics to reading’

• are monitored by the class teacher, who rotates and works with each group on a regular basis.

• Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:

  • decoding

  • prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression

  • comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.

• In Reception these sessions start in Week 4. Children who are not yet decoding have daily additional blending practice in small groups, so that they quickly learn to blend and can begin to read books.

• In Year 2 and 3, we continue to teach reading in this way for any children who still need to practice reading with decodable books.