Learning and Teaching
Literacy Term 3
Welcome back to Term 3. This is an exciting term in the literacy space as we celebrate Book Week, with the 2026 theme, 'Symphony of Stories'. We will kick off Book Week by hosting our annual Book Week Parade on Monday 24th August at 9:00am. The venue will be confirmed closer to the date depending on the weather, but we are hoping to hold it in our usual spot on the top basketball court.
This week, I'd like to put a spotlight on reading fluency, as I know this may have been discussed during Parent-Teacher Interviews. Reading fluency is the ability to read accurately, smoothly and with expression. Fluent readers can focus less on working out the words and more on understanding what they are reading. Reading fluency develops over time and begins in Foundation, where students learn to decode words accurately. As students move through the year levels, our focus expands to include accuracy, automaticity, expression and appropriate pace.
At school, we regularly measure fluency through two key measures:
Accuracy (%) – the percentage of words read correctly.
Words Per Minute (WPM) – the number of words a student can read correctly in one minute.
Reading fluency is highly important, as it is one of the strongest indicators of reading comprehension, which is the main goal of reading. Put simply, when children are reading fluently, they are better able to understand what they are reading.
Fluency is a skill that develops over time with regular reading practice. Just 5–10 minutes of reading each day, both at school and at home, can make a big difference to a child's confidence, fluency and understanding. For beginning readers, or students who need extra support in developing their fluency, it is particularly beneficial for this reading to be out loud and with a proficient reader who can provide support and feedback when needed, when reading at home.
This also explains why students in Foundation to Year 2 generally bring home a few readers for the week, allowing them to read the same text multiple times. Repeated reading of a familiar text is an evidence-based strategy that helps build accuracy, automaticity and fluency, allowing children to become more confident readers before moving on to a new text.
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Erica Hudson
3/4 Classroom Teacher (Monday and Tuesday)
Literacy Leader
Religious Education Leader
Mindful Mondays are back.
We have made a positive and calm return to Yoga this term. All classes are really enjoying our new room and the fairy lights for relaxation. We are learning the benefits of our Yoga Poses and what they can do for our mind and body. Blankets have been a huge added bonus to help keep the body still during relaxation. With the added option of mindful colouring to end the class, most students are enjoying this 5 minutes of silent time to rest and recharge for the remainder of the school day.
Please come and see me if you would like a mindful colouring to add to our classroom wall. I love seeing the cohesiveness of creations combined.
Chelsea Maxwell
Yoga
Green Team News
The final day of Term Two was Green Team afternoon. Although St Brendan’s finished at 1:00 pm, leaving little time for the whole team to meet, three enthusiastic Foundation students—Dulcie, Frankie and Pippa—volunteered to help prepare Brendan’s Garden for the holidays.
The girls worked hard harvesting the last of the cos lettuce, which had been nibbled by the local wild rabbits, before placing the leaves into the bathtub worm farm to feed our hungry worms. They then spread mulch across the garden beds to prepare them for planting in Term Three. To help protect our newly planted winter seedlings, the garden beds were also sprinkled with blood and bone in the hope of discouraging the rabbits from returning for another feast.
A big thank you to Dulcie, Frankie and Pippa for their enthusiasm and hard work. We can't wait to fill our empty garden beds with new seedlings and watch Brendan’s Garden flourish throughout Term Three!
