At Brindishe Schools we know that reading is crucial for all learning, from the reading of Maths word problems to research texts in History, and it is at the heart of our curriculum. We promote high standards of language and literacy by equipping pupils with a strong command of the spoken and written word, and to develop a real love of literature through widespread reading for enjoyment. The essential skills for reading are taught explicitly during daily English lessons and reading sessions and as well as finding them threaded throughout our Brindishe Schools curriculum.

All children are taught through a mixture of individual, shared, guided and whole-class reading sessions. Children will develop their reading fluency and their ability to respond to texts in a variety of ways and the way we teach reading is tailored to meet all the children’s needs and abilities. A range of appropriate strategies will be used by our teachers to identify and support each child’s next steps.

Reading for Pleasure

We want children to develop a real love of books and reading and so we make sure that children have access to, and are introduced to, high quality books and texts every day in their class libraries as well as around the school. We want children to see books, stories and reading as an enjoyable and stimulating experience and to read for pleasure as well as for purpose.

We also foster a love of reading through special events such as author visits to the school, making sure children know about and visit local libraries, holding story telling weeks and our World Book Day celebrations.

Early Reading

Early reading is taught through direct, focused phonics sessions, which happen every day in Early Years and Key Stage 1. We want children to read from books with the sounds they know as well as having access to ‘real books’ written by published authors. Our aim is to develop children to be versatile readers who want to pursue their own interests and develop their imaginations.

At Brindishe Schools, each child in Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1 take home books to enjoy from their class libraries. This may mean listening to an adult read, reading to an adult or to themselves. Reading record and response books in Early Years Foundation Stage and KS1 provide a constant link between home and school and this home-school link is vital to developing confident and skilled readers. We provide regular opportunities to explain to parents and carers their vital role in helping their child become a successful reader through curriculum workshops and parent meetings. 

Phonics

At Brindishe Schools, we follow Phonics Bug Club which is an interactive print and digital literacy programme which develops reading for meaning, as well as allowing children to explore and develop their non-fiction skills and word reading skills

This programme starts with Phase 1 in the Nursery and in our Reception classes the children experience an intensive phonic programme (Phases 2, 3 and 4). This covers all 44 phonemes in the English language, and enables children to begin to hear individual sounds within words (to segment), as well as put the sounds together to make a word (to blend them).  This continues into Year 1 (Phases 1-5), where children will continue to develop their phonetic knowledge to support with reading and writing, and in Year 2, where children develop their understanding of spelling rules and patterns (Phase 6). 

Phonics sessions also include learning to read and write high frequency words as appropriate to each phase. Children are encouraged to apply this knowledge in shared or guided writing sessions and in their independent writing. We provide workshops to explain to parents and carers about our approach to the teaching of Phonics and how they can support at home.

The accompanying Bug Club phonic books are both in print and online. Each child will be given phonic books to read at home from our Bug Club scheme, as well as allocated books online which closely match the specific phonic sounds and words they are learning each week.

Key Stage 2

In KS2, reading is taught through high-quality texts and carefully linked to the curriculum. The sessions are differentiated to meet children’s needs and cover all the reading skills outlined in the National Curriculum, including a focus on: retrieval; inference; summarising; prediction; word meaning; analysing authors’ use of word choice; analysing authors’ bias; identifying text types and organisational features; and comparing and contrasting texts.  

In KS2, children are encouraged to take a more active role in their reading learning journey, by recording and commenting on the books that they read at home in their Reading Records. These are then shared with an adult at school and provide areas for discussions in reading sessions.

If you would like to know more about how we teach reading or phonics at Brindishe, please contact the school office who will put you in touch with a member of our English team.

Bug Club Workshop for Families at Brindishe Schools