Bridges Reading & Writing Institute

Our highest goal is to bring back the JOY of reading and writing to children. We specialize in transforming the stress of learning to read and write into something the student genuinely enjoys. Not only are we experts in all the current trends and contemporary methods of teaching reading and writing, but, more importantly, we know how to use those teaching methods to help any student develop a genuine and unique joy for reading and writing. Everyone has different likes and dislikes. Our curriculum can translate your child’s unique likes into the reading and writing process. Our two hour sessions have a warm, welcoming and comfortable setting. By ensuring that the students have the same teacher and the same group of two to four students at every session, a real bond and trust is developed between the students and teacher. Students feel at ease to be themselves, make mistakes and ask questions.

This begins with captivating student interest through unique and thought provoking stories. Each story we read is hand-picked, reviewed and read by all the BRWI Instructors before being added into the curriculum. Written by our favorite authors who have their own unique style of writing, these stories have a suspense-driven plot, multi-dimensional characters and universal themes that will prompt students to think, respond and question what they read.

During our two hour sessions, students are wholly engaged as they actively read. Our students practice the Read, Stop, Think and Write reading method (the “RSTW Reading Method”). The RSTW Reading Method makes reading an active task for students. Most students pick up a book and do nothing with it making the book entertaining for the moment, but flat and forgettable. What they do not know is that reading “with a pen in hand” challenges them to think. It activates their own personal connections to the characters and the storyline. It compels students to analyze the core elements of a story, discover the author’s purpose and how this author achieves his purpose. By fostering this kind of deeper thinking and literary analysis, students find reading to be enriching and emotional. When we finish reading, our students leave feeling sad and nostalgic, inspired and satisfied, irked and doubtful, or giddy and happy. No matter what our students are feeling when they go home, the characters come alive to them and the plot inspires them to read more.

We give students the opportunity for creative writing, something that does not happen enough in schools today. At BRWI, students write a variety of creative pieces such as fantasy fiction stories, mysteries, science fiction stories, autobiographies, reflective essays, poems or descriptive summaries. At BRWI, we want to pique students’ imagination and show them that they can be good writers. We teach them the power and the fun of choosing words to create tone and certain moods. We teach them how to incorporate a variety of sentence structures as a way of changing the pace and feeling of the story. We teach them the power of dialogue and how it can be a great way to cut through long narratives and make writing flow more easily and dynamically. We teach them to use figurative language as a way to create mental pictures for their reader and to emphasize important parts of their stories. We teach them to add Soda Pop, Pop!—the twists and turns of a story that leave the reader waiting to find out what will happen next.

By showcasing their poems and stories on the wall of our school, students realize that their craft of language and their work to create unique and original stories means something. Our students finish their stories and poems feeling very proud of the work they have accomplished.

Furthermore, the elevated confidence that results from creative writing always translates over to the other writing types such as commentary and formal essay writing. Almost always, students realize that they have something to say and can use their writing to share their ideas with others. The other writing types we cover at BRWI are summaries, commentary paragraph, literary analysis essay, character analysis essay, author’s purpose essay, and theme essay. By alternating between creative and formal essay writing, our students get to taste success in both areas.