Further funding has been announced to support, Inspiring Classrooms, a project created by the First Minister’s Reading Challenge to help schools build and sustain a reading culture.

Schools have until Friday 16th February 2018 to apply a small grant for a project of their choice which includes an author visit and books for Primary 1 – 7 children taking part.

CLICK HERE – Inspiring Classrooms

Thank you to Audrey Buchannan, Head Teacher at Tore and Munlochy Primary Schools, for sharing the information within this post.

As part of supporting family learning, positive adult/child interaction (through the Words Up! Early Key Messages) and developing children’s emerging literacy skills, Lianne Pirie from Tore Primary School is launching Story Sacks, which have been designed to support early literacy, language and communication development, with the families of children across the Early Level at Tore and Munlochy Primary Schools this month.

Each of their Story Sacks have a theme, and each Story Sack includes books related to the theme, props related to the books and some practical ways to build on children’s early language and motor skills using the props and the texts.

Tore and Munlochy have kindly shared their:

Story Sacks Launch Presentation
Story Sacks – Family Leaflet

The ‘Asking the Right Questions at the Right Time‘ PowerPoint from the Highland Literacy Toolkit supports practitioners in developing their understanding of how to support concrete to abstract thinking, a key Oral Language skill which needs to be taken account of when developing literacy programmes.

This featured as part of recent Emerging Literacy Networks and practitioners suggested it would be useful to have the Blanks Level Language Questions which are used in the session for ‘The Gruffalo’, enabling these to be used within the classroom environment to support assessment of children’s concrete to abstract thinking.

A handout has now been created which you can access below:

CLICK HERE: Blanks Levels – The Gruffalo

Paired reading is a very effective, evidence-based method of helping children progress in their reading.  It is like a child learning to ride a bike.  In the early stages you give the child encouragement, confidence and control, by holding the bicycle.  Your own instinct will tell you when to let go.  So you can gradually disengage for longer periods until your child is able to ride without help.  The same applies to Paired Reading.  It is an ideal way of helping your child to become an independent reader. It works on building up the positives and successes rather than concentrating on mistakes.

Download the resources below by clicking the hyperlinks.

• Paired Reading – An adult’s guide
• Paired Reading for Adults – Training PPT
• Peer Paired Reading – Pupil Training Guide
• Paired Reading Partners – Pupil Training PPTs
• Peer Paired Reading – Family Guide for Partners

On the 4th of December 2017, The Inverness Courier celebrated its 200 year anniversary. As part of their anniversary, a writing competition has been launched for Highland children.

Theme:
“As we go into the next 200 years, what changes what would you like to see take place in and around Inverness?”

The competition is running until Monday 26th February 2018. There are four age categories for the competition:
– Nursery to Primary 2 (Art competition – entries no larger than A3 size)
– P3 – P6*
– P7 – S3*
– S4 – S6*
* Writing competition with the word limit of 400 words.

If schools are taking part, it is asked that the school narrows down their entries to three within each age category. These should then be sent to Care and Learning Business Support, Highland Council HQ, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness, IV3 5NX by Monday 26th February 2018.

Entries due by:
Monday 26th February 2018

Winners to be decided by:
Monday 26th March 2018

Prizes:
Winners to have their entries published in the Courier plus other prizes and an invitation to visit Courier office.   Good luck!

If you haven’t checked it out already, check out the IC200 area of the website. This has a headline article for each year, 1817-2017. This is an excellent resource to support this competition and can support Social Studies/ Literacy learning contexts.

Last week the BBC launched its, now in its eighth year, 500 Word story-writing competition, aiming to motivate children and young people aged 5 – 13 to write.

The 500 Word story-writing competition opened on Monday 15th January 2018 and competition entries close at 7pm on Thursday 22nd February 2018.

CLICK HERE: 500 Word story-writing competition INFORMATION

As part of its launch, you can watch the Live Lesson on BBC iPlayer with your children until Tuesday 13th February 2018. There are also lesson materials which can be used to support.

CLICK HERE: 500 Words – LIVE LESSONS

They have also created a range of story starter materials which can be used to support the writing process.

CLICK HERE: 500 Words – Story Starters

Jenny Wilson, Literacy Development Officer, has a number of short life working groups which have been formed to support the development of Highland’s Literacy Strategy. If anyone is interested in taking part in any of these groups, please contact: jenny.wilson@highland.gov.uk for further information.

P1 Teachers – The Scottish Book Trust need YOUR help to shape the future of the Primary 1 Bookbug Family Pack!

P1 Teachers – Help shape the Bookbug Primary 1 Family Bag!

Scottish Book Trust is asking Primary 1 teachers for their help in developing the Bookbug Primary 1 Family Bag by completing a short online survey. Please click here to take part in the survey, which shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to complete. By taking part, you’ll be supporting the important work of the Bookbug programme and you could win a reading tent and a bundle of books for your class! The deadline for completing the survey is Wednesday 31st January 2018.

CLICK HERE – P1 Teacher Bookbug Survey

Scottish Book Trust is also looking for feedback from families who have children in Primary 1. We would be grateful if you could share the information below with the families of P1 children in your school.

P1 Families – Scottish Book Trust needs your help!

Every November, Scottish Book Trust gifts a free bag of books to every P1 child in Scotland to help support their literacy skills and to encourage them to develop a life-long love of books. Scottish Book Trust is asking families of children in P1 to complete a short online survey about the Bookbug Primary 1 Family Bag. Please click here to take part in the survey, which shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to complete. Your feedback will help us to improve the Bookbug P1 Family Bag in the future and you could win a free bundle of books! The deadline for completing the survey is Wednesday 31st January 2018.

CLICK HERE – P1 Bookbug Family Survey

Safer Internet Day 2018 takes place on Tuesday 6th February 2018

Robert Quigley, who currently developing digital citizenship and internet safety in Highland, has opened up a challenge to schools who may wish to get involved in to mark Safer Internet Day 2018.

This is a great context to apply the literacy skills of sequence and narrative, using appropriate language and critical thinking.

The Authors Live session on Thursday 25th January 2018, 11am – 11.40am, is geared at S1-S6. It is set to be an engaging discussion about the unheard voices in the writing industry and why it’s important for young people to make their voices heard.

The Scottish Book Trust will be joined by Alex Wheatle, author of the award-winning Crongton sequence, Scottish rapper Dave Hook from hip hop band Stanley Odd, and Ayisha Malik,  author of Sofia Khan Is Not Obliged, who has also worked as an editor and publicist.

CLICK HERE – SIGN UP AUTHORS LIVE: Unheard Voices

Date: Thursday 25th January 2018
Time: 11am – 11.40am
Target Audience: S1 – S6

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.