BC Phonics for Little Wandle Letters & Sounds Revised — Rapid Catch-Up For Age 7+ Teacher's Guide

Teacher’s Guide

Rapid Catch-up for Age 7+

A complete systematic synthetic phonics programme

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Wandle Learning Trust and Little Sutton Primary School have partnered with HarperCollinsPublishers to provide teachers with a full systematic synthetic phonics programme, Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, and accompanying Collins Big Cat readers. Full details of the programme, including CPD training, can be found at www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk.

Introducing Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up for age 7+

We urgently need to teach any child who cannot read in Year 2 or above.

Every child in Year 2 or above who cannot read at age-related expectations needs urgent targeted support so that they can access the curriculum and enjoy reading as soon as possible.

Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up is a complete catch-up programme that mirrors the main phonics programme but has a faster pace. It has been created to help children catch up quickly. This quote from the Reading framework (2021) makes it clear why this is so important:

‘After Year 1, learning in the wider curriculum depends increasingly on literacy. Pupils who cannot read well enough do not have full access to the curriculum. Those who fail to learn to read early on often start to dislike reading. They read less than others – and less often –and do not accumulate the background knowledge and vocabulary from reading that their peers do. The word-rich get richer, while the word-poor get poorer.’

In addition to this Teacher’s guide, the Rapid Catch-up programme includes the following:

Printed books and resources from Collins:

• 50 new decodable books matched exactly to the Rapid Catch-up programme, including 10 blending practice books for Phases 2 and 3

• Rapid Catch-up word cards and tricky word cards for all phases.

On the Little Wandle website at www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk:

• Rapid Catch-up assessment tools

• Rapid Catch-up weekly grids

• Rapid Catch-up ‘How to’ videos

• a range of other teaching resources including images.

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All of the resources have been designed to work seamlessly with existing Little Wandle resources such as the grapheme cards and picture cards, and the grapheme charts and mats.

Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up has been trialled in schools with high levels of EAL and Pupil Premium so that we can be sure that it provides the support needed to develop language alongside teaching reading words.

The programme has been developed to ensure plenty of repeated practice in blending, word reading and spelling in each lesson, using a range of activities such as Change it, Match the words to the pictures and Mix it up. Children also need to learn the meaning of the words that they read, which is why we provide simple definitions or contextualising sentences for words.

By the end of the programme children should be reading with enough fluency and accuracy to access the curriculum in class, and to read with enjoyment and understanding.

Identifying children for Rapid Catch-up

‘It is essential that, by the end of their primary education, all pupils are able to read fluently, and with confidence, in any subject in their forthcoming secondary education.’ English National Curriculum (DfE, 2013)

Any child in your school who is reading at below the expected level for their age should be assessed immediately to identify what support and teaching they need to become fluent, accurate readers. For children in Reception or Year 1 who are following the Little Wandle programme, intervention should be in the form of individual or group Keep-up. (See the Keep-up area of the Little Wandle website.)

Using the assessment materials

Children in Year 2 and above who are not at age-related expectations for reading should be assessed using the Rapid Catch-up phonics assessment and fluency assessment to check if they need to follow the Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up programme. The assessments, assessment guidance and supporting videos can be found in the Rapid Catch-up area of the Little Wandle website, and you will find detailed information on how to carry out the assessments there.

By using these assessments, you will be able to work out exactly what gaps these children have, and put in place a robust programme to ensure they learn to read quickly. The assessments will also help you to match children to the appropriate reading book.

You will need to:

• assess all children on entry to the Rapid Catch-up programme so their pathway and specific teaching can be created

• re-assess children when they complete Phases 2, 3 and 4

• assess children who are following the Phase 5 part of the programme every four weeks

• assess children at the end of the programme to check they are ready to leave Little Wandle Rapid Catch-up.

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The Rapid Catch-up fluency assessment should be used to find out about children’s reading accuracy and rate of reading as they become more confident readers in Phase 5, and to tell you whether children have gained enough fluency and accuracy to exit the Rapid Catch-up programme. In order to understand the meaning of what they are reading, children need to be reading at approximately 90 words per minute.

Pathways

The results of the initial Rapid Catch-up assessment will determine the correct pathway through the programme for each child.

Pathway 1: Some children will have large gaps in their knowledge and need to follow the whole Rapid Catch-up programme from the beginning. Other children will have secure knowledge of early phase GPCs but large gaps in later phases – these children will be able to start the programme part way through. For children with large gaps, you will teach all of the content in the weekly grids (on the Little Wandle website) from the relevant point, using the lesson templates for support (see pages 18 to 27). You can refer to the Prompt cards (see pages 28 to 61) for a detailed breakdown of each part of the lesson/activity.

Pathway 2: Some children will have smaller gaps in their knowledge that can be filled in short, focused lessons. If you are filling in specific gaps for a child, as identified by the Rapid Catch-up assessment, use the Prompt cards to guide your teaching and the words identified in the ‘Word cards’ column of the assessment in your lessons. You can also refer to the relevant parts of the weekly grids (on the Little Wandle website).

Your regular four-weekly assessments will enable you to check the children’s progress and further tailor the programme for each child. Depending on the children’s progress, you may decide to switch between the pathways. While it is important to ensure that the children have secure knowledge of all the GPCs and words in a phase before moving on, teaching should be as pacey as possible. Remember that the aim of the programme is to enable children to catch up and become fluent readers quickly.

Using initial assessment results to determine the correct pathway

Part 1: Phase 2

Assessment: 32 GPCs/15 words

Assessment results

Part 2: Phase 3

Assessment: 14 GPCs/22 words

Assessment results

If

Action

reteach any incorrect words then move to Part 2: Phase 3 of the assessment

teach the whole programme from the beginning of Phase 2 (Pathway 1)

Action

reteach any incorrect GPCs and words then move to Part 3: Phase 4 of the assessment

teach to the gaps (Pathway 2)

teach the whole programme from the beginning of Phase 3 (Pathway 1)

Part 3: Phase 4

Assessment: 18 words

Assessment results

If at least 16 words are read correctly, 10 of which are read automatically

If 3 to 4 words are read incorrectly or not read, but at least 10 words are read automatically

If 5 or more words are read incorrectly or not read, and fewer than 10 words are read automatically

Part 4: Phase 5

Assessment: 42 GPCs/92 words

Assessment results

If at least 40 GPCs

If 5 to 10 GPCs

If 11 GPCs or more

Common issues

at least 87 words

16 words or more and or or

6 to 15 words

are read automatically are read incorrectly or not read are read incorrectly or not read

Action

reteach any incorrect words then move to Part 3: Phase 5 of the assessment

teach to the gaps (Pathway 2)

teach the whole programme from the beginning of Phase 4 (Pathway 1)

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Action

reteach any incorrect GPCs and words. These children do not need to follow Rapid Catch-up.

teach to the gaps (Pathway 2)

teach the whole programme from the beginning of Phase 5 (Pathway 1)

Not blending at Phases 2 and 3: Check the children’s oral blending skills using the oral blending assessments. Use teacher-led blending every day. See the guidance for ‘Blending and reading words – super-supported method’ on page 36.

Not reading words automatically: See the guidance for ‘Reading words with/without overt blending’ on page 45.

Not able to identify the digraphs/trigraphs in words: Go back to teacher-led blending using the grapheme cards. See also the guidance for ‘Reading words with speedy digraph recognition’ on page 44.

Incomplete knowledge of the alphabetic code: Children who have not fully understood the alphabetic code can often read common words by sight but struggle to read words in context with the same GPCs. If we don’t teach these children how to read any word using their alphabetic knowledge, they will struggle to become fluent readers and access the curriculum. If children can read the assessment words but not read the GPCs or identify the GPCs in the words, they will need to follow the Phase 5 part of the programme.