Reception (Nidd & Swale)

WEEKLY UPDATE

Dear Parents and Carers,

We are so proud of our new Reception children! They have had a fantastic second week at school, settling into new routines and continuing to show enthusiasm, independence, and a positive approach to their learning. A huge thank you to all parents for your support at home—it really shows in the children’s confident start to school life.

Reception Phonics Has Begun!

This week, we have started our daily Little Wandle phonics sessions in Reception. The children have been very enthusiastic and are already beginning to use some of the key words we introduce in our lessons.

In phonics, we use some special vocabulary to help the children talk clearly about their learning:

• Grapheme – the written letter (for example: s)

• Phoneme – the sound the letter makes (for example: /s/ as in sun)

We are also helping the children to pronounce each sound correctly. Little Wandle highlights how important this is because if sounds are pronounced inaccurately (for example, adding “uh” onto the end of a sound, saying /suh/ instead of /s/), it makes it much harder for children to blend them together when reading words. By keeping sounds clear and precise, children can more easily hear how the phonemes join up to make words.

Please do check out the For Parents section on the Little Wandle website. This area is packed with helpful videos and downloadable guides. Here, you’ll find clear explanations of how sounds are taught, letter formation support, and more—designed to make you feel confident when helping your child learn to read at home

How to Access the Resources

1. Go to the Little Wandle “For Parents” page.
   You’ll discover videos that show how phonics lessons are delivered, plus downloadable guides—for example, guides to Reception sounds for each term.

2. Use the helpful downloads.
   These include:

   • Termly guides to how sounds are taught (Reception Autumn 1, Autumn 2, Spring 1, etc.)

   • Videos like “How we teach blending” and “How we teach tricky words” 

These resources are a brilliant way to stay connected with your child’s phonics learning and feel confident in practicing with them at home.

Next week, we will start to practise how we sit in small groups with a teacher to learn to read. This helps the children to get used to the routines and expectations of group reading. From the week commencing 22nd September, additional adults will join us in the classroom so that, three times a week, small groups of children can practise their reading skills with an adult at the same time.

Below is an overview of the graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds) we will be learning from Monday 15th September.

A copy of our home learning will also be uploaded to your child’s Tapestry account each week so that you can continue to support their progress at home.

Have a lovely weekend!
Team Reception