Little Wandle

At St Matthew's, we teach early reading and phonics using the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised programme. This is a high-quality, systematic phonics programme designed to help children become confident, fluent readers as quickly as possible.

Phonics teaches children how to match sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes) so they can read and spell words. Little Wandle builds these skills step-by-step, helping children to:

• recognise letters and the sounds they make
• blend sounds together to read words
• segment words to help with spelling
• develop fluency and confidence in reading

All children from Reception to Year 2 take part in daily phonics lessons, where learning is carefully structured and revisited regularly. This ensures that all children make strong progress.

How Phonics is Taught

The programme is taught in phases, beginning in Reception and continuing into Year 1. Children learn new sounds gradually and revisit them regularly to develop confidence and automaticity.

Learning is supported through:

• daily practice
• repetition and revisiting
• reading fully decodable books matched to learning
• clear modelling of pronunciation and blending

Little Wandle is a systematic and structured programme, which helps children become fluent readers and supports long-term success.