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
Year One have daily story time – this may be a picture book or longer chapter book
Year Two
Children have two short whole class reading sessions (15-20mins) per week focusing on a specific VIPERS comprehension skill. They also have one longer reading session each week, where a range of VIPERS skills are covered.
Children who still need to learn some phonic sounds have catch up sessions each day with a Teaching Assistant.
All children have banded independent reading books which are changed twice per week. All children participate in weekly ‘Reading for Pleasure’ sessions.
Year Two have daily story time – this may be a picture book or longer chapter book.
Year Three – Year Six
Children have 3 short reading sessions (15 minutes) per week focusing on a specific VIPERS comprehension skill. They also have a longer, mixed VIPERS session once a week.
All children have reading books. Children with banded books read weekly with an adult.
Children who still need to learn some phonic sounds have catch up sessions each day with a Teaching Assistant.
All children take part in weekly ‘Reading for Pleasure’ sessions.