Author Archives: Mr Cook
National Literacy Trust – Making the Most of the Home Learning Environment
The National Literacy Trust have created some guidnace to support early years settings, schools and partner agencies in ‘Making the Most of the Home Learning Environment‘.
The guidance includes some practical examples of how they’ve developed a culture of family learning as part of their setting.
CLICK HERE – Making the Most of the Home Learning Environment
Emerging Literacy – May 2018 Update
Join the Northern Alliance YAMMER site for Emerging Literacy to take part in the conversations on taking a developmental approach to Emerging Literacy
The Emerging Literacy: May 2018 – Update includes information on the:
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2018/2019 Highland schools SIP Template
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School support for 2018/2019 – including training and networks.
CLICK HERE: Emerging Literacy – May 2018 Update
“Following” the Highland Literacy Blog (May 2018)
When you originally subscribed to this blog using the “Follow” button, the WordPress site stored your email address so that you could continue to be updated via email each time a new post was added.
If you no longer wish for your contact details to be used to notify you when a new post is made, you can manage your settings from the blog home page. Alternatively you can leave a comment on this blog post to let us know and we will remove you from the notification list.
For those of you who are happy to continue to receive our posts, received through the automated email which is generated from the WordPress site each time a new post is added, there are no actions to be taken.
#NDLW18 – Digital Story Telling
Last week was National Digital Learning Week. In our previous post we shared the ‘Digital Story Telling’ opportunities which were being provided by Education Scotland.
Crown Primary School was over the moon when they got selected to take part in the collaborative storytelling.

In addition to this, schools in the Millburn ASG – Crown, Daviot, Raigmore and Strathdearn Primary Schools – all got together using Google classroom to create a text. Have a look to see what they created collaboratively. What a great example of collaboration.
CLICK HERE – Digital Story Telling Millburn ASG Example
Oral Language Toolkit – Sequence and Narrative
The Sequence and Narrative 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.
Sequence and Narrative development underpins children’s oral language comprehension and their ability to create texts using narrative and sequence structures. Children need to have a clear understanding of the narrative and sequence concepts within texts in order to comprehend what they read and structure/ create their own texts.
CLICK HERE – Narrative Guidance![]() |
CLICK HERE – Sequence Guidance![]() |
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| CLICK HERE – Narrative Editables EM CLICK HERE – Narrative Editables GM (coming soon) |
CLICK HERE – Sequence Editables EM |
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Words Up Primary – Key Messages
To support oral language development across the primary school, and strengthen adult/child interactions, the Words Up Primary Key Messages have been produced for schools to use as part of their literacy overviews.
The key messages will be woven into the current training programmes across Highland. Posters are currently being produced; please speak to your local Speech and Language Therapist (S<) for more information.
CLICK HERE – Words Up Primary Key Messages
Pen Fifty Words – May 2018
May’s ’50 Word Fiction’ from the Scottish Book Trust encourages you to get outdoors and write about some of our wonderful wildlife.
This month’s ’50 Word Fiction’ from the Scottish Book Trust asks you to ‘Write a story about an unusual plant.’
Why not tie it in with Outdoor Classroom Day this week on Thursday 17th May 2018? There are great resources on the Highland Learning for Sustainability (LfS) blog to support literacy through outdoor learning.
CLICK HERE – Highland LfS Blog
The deadline is Tuesday 29th May 2018. The two Young Writers categories are open to all children and young people from 5 to 18.
CLICK HERE – ’50 Word Fiction’
Milestones to Support Learners with Complex Additional Support Needs
As part of their suite of resources, Education Scotland have produced a set of Literacy and English milestones to support learners with complex additional support needs.
“Milestones are important points in development and demonstrate progression. Learners who are not able to achieve any of the benchmarks within Early Level still require tracking and monitoring of their progression. Whilst, many of these learners will move on to work at Early Level, some learners will continue to make progress at the pre-early stage.
These milestones are intended to support practitioners to track the progression of these learners. They are not intended to provide an alternative curriculum for children and young people with complex additional support needs and planning for such learners should continue to be based on the Experiences and Outcomes from Curriculum for Excellence with personalisation where required.”
CLICK HERE – Education Scotland: Milestones
Authors Live – Ross Collins
Author, Ross Collins, of the wonderful rhyming picture book ‘There’s a Bear on my Chair’, will be on Authors Live on Thursday 17th May 2018, 11am – 11.40am.
Authors Live sessions can be watched live, or can be accessed in the Watch on Demand section of the Scottish Book Trust website.
After you’ve signed up to join below, you may want to check out Ross’ read through:
CLICK HERE – SIGN UP AUTHORS LIVE: ROSS COLLINS
Date: Thursday 17th May 2018
Time: 11am – 11.40am
Target Audience: P1 – P3
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.










