Phonics at Vale School

At The Vale school we recognise the critical importance of reading as a life skill. Our ambition is to support our pupils at every step along their journey, to nurture independence and a love of reading. 

We recognise that our pupils join Vale at different stages on their reading / pre-reading journey. As part of our reading curriculum, we ensure that all pupils learn how to read words as well as comprehend and understand what they are reading. Our reading curriculum has been carefully designed with our whole school community in mind.

The reading curriculum at Vale includes: 

•  Daily pre-phonics/phonics and reading sessions. 

• Exploring a variety of reading materials to match their needs, interests and ambitions. 

• Engaging with sensory stories and pre-phonic activities. 

• Learning phonics as a main route into reading. 

• Reading for pleasure and purpose through meaningful comprehension activities. 

Pre-phonics: 

During reading sessions, pupils listen to stories, sing songs, join in with rhymes and develop key pre-phonic skills through an active, engaging, and multisensory approach. 

Daily opportunities for pre-reading include interactive books, sensory stories, photo albums, and massage stories. 

Activities are intentionally repetitive and reinforcing to build key pre-phonic skills and develop memory over time.  

Phonics: 

Phonics is taught using the Little Wandle Phonics programme every day. This is delivered by teachers and helps pupils to: 

• Learn new letters matched to sounds. 

• Blend to read words using taught sounds. 

• Read new words and sentences in matched decodable books. 

Pupils begin phonics as soon as children achieve developmental milestones indicated in the Vale Assessment Tracking assessment.

Comprehension: 

At Vale School, we value the importance of reading for meaning. Our ambition is that all pupils gain a series of skills to help them comprehend a variety of text: 

• Predicting 

• Clarifying 

• Summarising 

• Questioning 

Comprehension and reading for meaning is integral to our whole-school curriculum. Pupils are exposed to a multiple of opportunities, teaching them to understand what they are reading in a range of different contexts. 

For more information about Little Wandle Letters and Sounds, please look here: 

For parents | Letters and Sounds