At the end of April we were delighted to welcome Dr Laura Shapiro from Aston University to Highland. Laura’s original research on phonological awareness from 2008 with Dr Jonathan Solity contributed to the early developments of Emerging Literacy, the principles being embedded in c. 345 schools across the Northern Alliance.

During her visit, Laura presented her research on phonological awareness, reading and vocabulary to a group of speech and langauge therapists and educational psychologists. The presentation explores these key questions:

The presentation with audio is accessible below.

CLICK HERE – Laura Shapiro Presentation 24th April 2019

At the current round of Emerging Literacy Networks we are sharing the guidance on Information Carrying Words from the Oral Language Toolkit.

The Information Carrying Words guidance sits as part of the Oral Language Toolkit. This will be added to periodically throughout the 2018/2019 session, and updates share through blog posts.

Information carrying words are the words in a sentence that we need to comprehend when following directions or instructions. This is different to the number of words in a sentence, as depending on the context and any contextual clues, some of the words and phrases are not required in order to comprehend. The guidance encourages practitioners to reflect on their interactions to minimise overload.

CLICK HERE – Information Carrying Words

Shared by Jenny Wilson, Literacy Development Officer

For young people in secondary schools with persistent literacy difficulties, the Post-16 Phonics Approaches – A Toolkit resource from the Education and Training Foundation has been designed to support the use of phonics with young people and adults to provide access to texts and support with the creation of texts. It provides a balance between research and practical application.

CLICK HERE – Post-16 Phonics Approaches – A Toolkit

A special Authors Live from Scottish Book Trust for World Oceans Day (Saturday 8th June 2019) will be taking place on Thursday 6th June 2019.

Authors Live sessions can be watched live, or can be accessed in the Watch on Demand section of the Scottish Book Trust website.

CLICK HERE – Authors Live Lauren St John and Elizabeth Laird

Date: Thursday 6th June 2019
Time: 11am – 11.40am
Target Audience: P4-P7

Please note that the link to watch is emailed to you manually by one of the Scottish Book Trust team. As this is not an automatic process, please sign up to watch as soon as you can so that they can get your link to you in plenty of time.

The final Northern Alliance (Highland): Emerging Literacy network of this session is on Wednesday 5^th June 2019, 4pm – 6pm. This is one of the smaller group Buddy Networks with the video instead of a facilitator to support collaboration with practitioners across settings. The Buddy Network Video guides you through the session. 

To support collaboration at the network, practitioners are asked to bring electronically or in paper form:

• copies of each of the network resources – you will need these for the various activities (materials in zip file)

• trackers for phonological awareness and pre-handwriting.

The details of where each school group has identified that they will meet can be found in the relevant document below:
Highland – Buddy Network June

For Early Years Practitioners that are taking a developmental approach to Emerging Literacy in their early learning and childcare (ELC) setting you may be interested in checking out the Boogie Mites Children’s Songs For Pre School Learning Youtube channel. Supporting children’s development through music, amongst other things, is great for supporting children’s listening and attention and auditory discrimination skills – two aspects of early phonological awareness development.

CLICK HERE – Boogie Mites Youtube Channel

The Author Interviews section of the Words for Life website includes interviews with a number of authors talking about the books they like to read and giving tips on supporting children to get reading and writing.

CLICK HERE – Author Interviews – Words for Life

Following engagement with the Words Up Early (Level 1) Key Messages Training there has been guidance developed by education practitioners and speech and language therapists to support practitioners to embed the Words Up Early Key messages in their practice. This guidance has been shared recently with practitioners in their second and third year of the Emerging Literacy networks.

The Words Up Early Key Messages Guidance Notes March 2019 provide an overview of how ELC practitioners and teachers can embed the Words Up Early key messages in their practice and the Words Up One Early Monitoring Tool March 2019 can be used to support ongoing self-evaluation and reflection on the progress that is being made.

CLICK HERE: Words Up Early Key Messages Guidance Notes March 2019
CLICK HERE: Words Up One Early Monitoring Tool March 2019

StoryCon is a free annual creative writing and illustration conference for young people aged 13-19, organised by the teens on Scottish Book Trust’s What’s Your Story? programme. Bookings for StoryCon 2019 are now open.

• When: Saturday 22 June, 10am-5pm
• Where: The Prince’s Trust’s Wolfson Centre, 15 Carlton Court, Glasgow, G5 9JP. Find out more about the venue and check it out on Google Maps.

CLICK HERE – StoryCon Information and Booking