Phonics 

At MOSPS, we teach children phonics through the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. Phonics begins in Reception where your child will have already been taught Phases 2, 3 and 4. In Year 1, the children will start by recapping Phase 3 and 4 before introducing Phase 5. Children have daily taught phonics lessons using the Little Wandle word cards and resources. Alongside learning new grahemes, children are taught mnemonics and phrases to support them in remembering each phoneme.

Parent Support

We would highly recommend visiting the 'Little Wandle' parent page for further information on how we teach phonics to your child/children and how you can support them further at home. 

Please follow the following link to the parent page: 

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/resources/for-parents/

Please follow the link below to view the programme overview:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Programme-Overview_Reception-and-Year-1-1.pdf 

Please follow the link below to view a useful document showing the graheme, phrase, pronounciation and alternative grahemes for each sound taught:

https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/How-to-say-the-Phase-5-sounds-September-2022.pdf

Phonics Vocabulary

Phoneme – The smallest unit of sound. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English (it depends on different accents). Phonemes can be put together to make words.

Grapheme – A way of writing down a phoneme. Graphemes can be made up from 1 letter e.g. p, 2 letters e.g. sh, 3 letters e.g. tch or 4 letters e.g ough.

GPC – This is short for Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence. Knowing a GPC means being able to match a phoneme to a grapheme and vice versa.

Digraph – A grapheme containing two letters that makes just one sound (phoneme).

Trigraph – A grapheme containing three letters that makes just one sound (phoneme).

Blending- This involves looking at a written word, looking at each grapheme and using knowledge of GPCs to work out which phoneme each grapheme represents and then merging these phonemes together to make a word.

Segmenting – This involves hearing a word, splitting it up into the phonemes (sound talk/sounding out) that make it, using knowledge of GPCs to work out which graphemes represent those phonemes and then writing those graphemes down in the right order.