Brooklands
Primary School
At Brooklands, we believe that reading is the key to unlocking a world of learning and imagination. From the very beginning, we focus on developing strong early reading skills, ensuring that every child becomes a confident and fluent reader. Alongside this, we foster a deep love of reading through engaging lessons, exciting book choices, and opportunities to explore stories in different ways. Our new library sits at the heart of our school, providing a welcoming space where children can discover new books, develop their reading skills, and share their love of stories. Reading is at the core of everything we do.
All our children visit our school library weekly. They are able to select a new book to take home to read and can swap these the next time they visit if they wish. Please see below for information about the official opening of our library in January.
Please see below for details of how reading is taught in each year group across the school.
Nursery
Using ‘Little Wandle Foundations for phonics’, children begin to develop early reading skills such as oral segmenting, oral blending and the ability to hear initial sounds in words.
Reception
Children have a daily phonics lesson as a whole class using ‘Little Wandle’
Children who need some extra help with phonics may have a catch up session called ‘Little Blenders’
Children have 2/3 small group reading sessions each week focusing on decoding (use of phonics), prosody (fluency/tone) and comprehension
Children who need additional support with reading have 1:1 reading sessions 3 times per week
There is a daily story time based on the children’s choices
Year One
Children have a daily phonics lesson as a whole class using ‘Little Wandle’
Children who need some extra help with phonics may have a catch up session called ‘Little Blenders’
Children have 2/3 small group reading sessions each week focusing on decoding (use of phonics), prosody (fluency/tone) and comprehension
Children also take part in daily DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) sessions, providing dedicated time to enjoy reading independently and develop positive reading habits.
Year Two
Children take part in four whole-class reading lessons each week, lasting approximately 30–40 minutes. Each new text unit lasts for two weeks, giving children plenty of time to read, revisit and become really familiar with the text.
Lessons focus on developing specific reading domain skills, alongside building children’s vocabulary and fluency. Particular attention is given to both Tier 2 vocabulary, which children are likely to encounter across a range of texts and subjects, and Tier 3 vocabulary, which is linked to specific topics and areas of learning.
Children revisit and re-read texts regularly, with lots of repetition built into lessons. This helps them to become increasingly fluent and confident readers, while also developing a strong familiarity with different text types, language patterns and structures.
At the end of each two-week unit, children are given an unseen text in the final lesson. This provides an opportunity for them to apply what they have learned independently and allows teachers to assess their progress against the reading domains that have been the focus of the unit.
Children who still need support to secure their phonics knowledge take part in daily catch-up sessions with a Teaching Assistant.
All children have a banded independent reading book, which is changed twice each week. Children also take part in daily DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) sessions, providing dedicated time to enjoy reading independently and develop positive reading habits.
As part of our home reading offer, families are also given access to the focus texts children will be studying in school, providing opportunities to read, discuss vocabulary, make connections and talk about the text together at home.
Year Three – Year Six
Children take part in four whole-class reading lessons each week, lasting approximately 30–40 minutes. Each new text unit lasts for two weeks, giving children plenty of time to read, revisit and become really familiar with the text.
Lessons focus on developing specific reading domain skills, alongside building children’s vocabulary and fluency. Particular attention is given to both Tier 2 vocabulary, which children are likely to encounter across a range of texts and subjects, and Tier 3 vocabulary, which is linked to specific topics and areas of learning.
Children revisit and reread texts regularly, with lots of repetition built into lessons. This helps them to become increasingly fluent and confident readers, while also developing a strong familiarity with different text types, language patterns and structures.
At the end of each two-week unit, children are given an unseen text in the final lesson. This provides an opportunity for them to apply what they have learned independently and allows teachers to assess their progress against the reading domains that have been the focus of the unit.
Children also take part in regular DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) sessions, providing dedicated time to enjoy reading independently and develop positive reading habits. All children have reading books; children on banded books read weekly with an adult in addition to core reading sessions and reading interventions.
As part of our home reading offer, families are also given access to the focus texts children will be studying in school, providing opportunities to read, discuss vocabulary, make connections and talk about the text together at home.