Statement of intent: teaching early reading

The Literacy Expert Panel has developed this statement of intent to support the implementation of high-quality, evidence-informed early reading instruction across Wales. It is intended to complement existing guidance and inform professional learning, curriculum design, and pedagogical practice in line with the strategic priorities of the Welsh Government and the Curriculum for Wales.

Phonological awareness through rich oral experiences

Early speech, language, and communication development is crucial for reading and writing. High-quality oracy provision should underpin all early literacy experiences.

Engagement with rhymes, songs, and poems helps develop phonological awareness - the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken language. These oral foundations support, and should continue alongside, explicit and systematic phonics instruction for decoding print.

Explicit and structured teaching of phonics

Explicit teaching of phonics is central to enabling learners to decode unknown words in both Welsh and English. Phonics instruction connects sounds (phonemes) to letters (graphemes).

The explicit and systematic teaching of phonics is essential for enabling all learners to decode unfamiliar words and apply knowledge about phonemes when spelling. Phonics teaching should follow a clearly defined sequence, allowing learners to build cumulative knowledge and automaticity. Instruction should include all common phoneme-grapheme correspondences in both Welsh and English.

Systematic synthetic phonics (SSP) is an important component of effective reading instruction. This should be used alongside a range of approaches to develop wider literacy skills, including fluency, vocabulary and comprehension - especially for learners with Additional Learning Needs.

Learners should not be encouraged to guess words using cues or pictures: prioritising guessing over decoding risks undermining the development of essential phonics skills. Pictures can support learners in making inferences about what they read as they develop their comprehension skills, and can also provide opportunities to analyse, interpret, and connect ideas beyond the text.

As learners’ knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences become more fluent, they can read familiar words on sight and recognise letter patterns within words, without having to decode phoneme-by-phoneme.

Integrated reading, writing, speaking and listening

Literacy instruction should make explicit the connections between reading, writing, speaking and listening. As learners develop fluency, they become more confident in recognising familiar words and decoding new ones. As they practise reading, learners with good orthographic processing begin to recognise familiar words more quickly through remembering letter patterns. This improves sight word recognition, reading fluency and spelling accuracy.

Building on teaching of phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences for reading, orthographic knowledge can be taught effectively through learning to spell. Orthographic knowledge includes knowledge of spelling patterns that represent larger units of sound: those consisting of more than one phoneme, such as onsets, rimes, syllables, and whole words.

Learners who might be experiencing challenges with orthographic processing can find it hard to see patterns in print or words. This can have an impact on reading fluency and spelling accuracy.

Reading and spelling are reciprocal processes. Learning to read strengthens spelling knowledge, and explicit spelling instruction reinforces reading accuracy and automaticity.

Developing learners’ oral language so that they can discuss what they read, and hear read to them, is important for reading comprehension.

Access to diverse and developmentally appropriate texts

In the early stages, learners should practise reading with decodable texts that align with the phoneme–grapheme correspondences they have been taught. This ensures reading success and builds fluency and confidence. This range of literature should then expand as decoding becomes accurate and automatic. Beyond individual reading, learners should be exposed to rich and varied vocabulary and narratives through a variety of activities that support learner engagement, foster reading for pleasure, and contribute to vocabulary growth and comprehension. For example, listening to adults read aloud enhances vocabulary acquisition, deepens understanding of written language structures and models fluency and expression for learners.