The reading scheme taught at Gilded Hollins School is Soundswrite, which links to our Dandelion book scheme. We believe Soundswrite promotes a strong, proven approach to the teaching of phonics and reading.

The strategies put in place as part of the scheme are as follows:

• The children learn to discriminate between the separate sounds in words.
• They learn the letters and combinations most commonly used to spell sounds.
• They learn to read words by sounding out and blending their separate parts.
• They study written representations of a sound and how it looks.
• They also recognise on sight vocabulary identified as complex.

At Gilded Hollins we are aware that all children are individual and have preferred learning styles. We aim, therefore, to provide children with a range of visual, kinaesthetic and auditory experiences that will enhance and improve their reading skills.

Many opportunities are provided throughout the school to fostering a genuine love of reading that will stay with the children throughout their lives. These include:

• Shared Reading sessions
• Reading Response sessions
• Teaching Literacy skills through a class text
• Independent reading
• Story time
• Library skills
• Home and school reading
• Reading buddies