Check out the Words for Life website (part of the National Literacy Trust site) for information for practitioners and families to support children’s literacy, language and communication development.
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Author Archives: Mr Cook
Bookbug Week – Monday 13th – Sunday 19th May 2019
Scottish Book Trust have announced that Bookbug Week 2019 is happening between Monday 13th and Sunday 19th May and will celebrate ‘Bookbug’s Big Picnic’.
Scottish Book Trust are encouraging everyone to take part in singing, rhyming and sharing stories together over the whole week. A whole host of fun story, song and rhyme activities for children will be taking place in local libraries and community venues.
Families can sign up for the Scottish Book Trust Bookbug for parents e-newsletter through the following link, as well as accessing information on the Scottish Book Trust Bookbug Facebook page:
CLICK HERE – Sign-up to SBT Bookbug for Parents
Developing Communication Skills in Early Learning and Childcare
Speech and Language Therapists across Highland work in collaboration with practitioners in Early Learning and Childcare settings and schools to support adult/ child interactions through the Words Up Early and Words Up Primary Key Messages.
Last session, working with Early Learning and Childcare practitioners in Scottish Attainment Challenge schools, Speech and Language Therapy Assistants supported adult/ child interaction through ongoing coaching, modelling and evaluation.
The report below details the impact of the collaboration on supporting children’s language and communication, a key predictor of children’s later attainment and achievement. As schools consider their Pupil Equity Fund interventions, they may wish to consider the partnership with our local speech and language therapy team in supporting children’s speech, language and communication.
CLICK HERE – Developing Communication Skills in Early Years
Precision Teaching – Updated Resources
The Precision Teaching Wave Three Intervention Materials have been updated, including an introductory training PowerPoint with slide voiceovers, and a resource package to support the use of precision teaching.
You can download the Precision Teaching Resources below:
Developing Literacy Skills Through IDL and Across Learning
Literacy permeates throughout everything we do both in and out of school. Practitioners can plan for Literacy skills through three different ways:
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Discrete literacy learning – Developing individual aspects of literacy.
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Literacy through Interdisciplinary Learning (IDL) – Applying and assessing literacy skills in context.
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Across learning – Opportunities to develop and demonstrate literacy skills in all subject areas.
Recently Education Scotland published resources for use across the Broad General Education (3-15), created in a partnership between the University of Glasgow and Education Scotland. The resources are located in a number of curricular areas such as Social Studies, Modern Languages, RME and Technologies. The resource links provide an opportunity for children to apply their literacy skills through interdisciplinary learning, or demonstrate literacy skills across learning.
CLICK HERE – Education Scotland/ University of Glasgow BGE Materials
Mentimeter
Mentimeter is a site with great potential for the classroom. There are many possible uses… in developing literacy skills for example, it can be used to develop children’s questioning skills linked to a text, or supporting the development of interactive presentations that generate instant feedback.
Teachers can create an account on www.mentimeter.com and get started with their presentation. Using an internet enabled device, others can then provide instant feedback that can be produced in a number of forms including word clouds and graphs.
The following video explains how to get started:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bswQJCAc5F4
CLICK HERE – Mentimeter
Crime and Thrillers Competition – Cromarty Arts
Cromarty Arts’ Crime and Thrillers may be a competition for YOU!
As part of this year’s Crime & Thrillers Weekend, Cromarty Arts have launched a brand new short story writing competition, open to all. The genre is crime and thrillers and the story title is ‘The One Hundred Steps’ (after the beautiful and legendary Cromarty walk up the South Sutor).
There are two categories: under 18 (1000 words) and 18+ years (2000 words) and the deadline for submissions is midnight on Sunday 7th April 2019. Entries will be judged anonymously with a winner and runner-up in both categories and prizes awarded by Ian Rankin at our end of weekend session on Sunday 5th May.
For full details, terms and conditions and an entry form, download here in Word or as a pdf.
CLICK HERE – Crime and Thrillers – Cromarty Arts
Bookbug App
Bookbug have recently launched their new app for families and practitioners to share songs and rhymes on the go, look up new words or make up songs and rhymes to their new instrumental versions!
CLICK HERE – Bookbug App More Information
Morphological Awareness
The Morphological Awareness resources that sit as part of the Wraparound Spelling guidance have been updated. This now includes further resources to support the learning and teaching of morphological awareness, and a continuum for morphological awareness development.
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CLICK HERE – Morphological Awareness – Roots and Shoots Guidance |
HIGHLAND LITERACY 