The Reading section on Adrian Bruce’s website is a gem of a find full of ideas, games and printables to support the teaching of reading. Definitely worth a wander through the tabs at the top of the page. I particularly like the Hidden Questions section which has resources to support the teaching of making inferences.
Quite often we’ll ask children to “Put your thinking cap on”. Empowering learners with the skills to think creatively and critically is a gift which we can facilitate as teachers. The Developing Thinking and Reading Between the Lines PowerPoints in the Literacy Toolkit provide professional learning resources for staff to engage with materials that promote thinking.
Many of our posts have referred to the work of Bloom; however, when I was at an Active Literacy CPD session in Falkirk before Christmas, the Six Hat materials were mentioned during a round table discussion.
Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats is a tool which can be used by practitioners to promote thinking. Each hat colour represents a different aspect of thinking.
Some of the resources, tailored to middle/upper Primary and Secondary, suggest physically wearing coloured representations of the hats when beginning to engage with the materials. This way, learners are physically moving between the hats; therefore they are moving between the different modes of thinking.
There are banks of free resources that are available to support the teaching of thinking skills using the De Bono’s Six Hats materials. The Six Hats materials can be used in conjunction with other Higher Order Thinking materials. Check out the resources below:
CLICK HERE – Using Six Hats as a reflection tool
CLICK HERE – Using the Six Hats to Respond to Literature
CLICK HERE – Six Hats Display
CLICK HERE – Thinking Display
CLICK HERE – FREE De Bono Thinking Resources
Using media is integral in developing our learners’ 21st Century Literacy skills. One way of promoting the use of media is through the use of a film club or Interdisciplinary Film Project within your school.
Has your school got a Film Club? Have you thought about starting up a film club, but didn’t know how?
The Into Film Club website houses ideas on how to use film and media in the classroom and how to create a film club in your school.
Into Film clubs are completely free for Highland Schools working with young people aged 5-19, joining Into Film provides your school with:
Free Amazon LOVEFiLM by post account
Access to free online resources to use in or outside the classroom
Filmmaking support and advice
Access to in-school visits from filmmaking professionals
Regular filmmaking competitions
Weekly review writing competitions
Priority festival booking
Check out our Media Literacy section of the blog for more information on using media in the classroom.
Before Christmas, First Minister – Nicola Sturgeon – visited Castleview Primary School in Edinburgh to see how they are developing the Scottish Government’s Raising Attainment agenda.
Check out the video – showcasing how Castleview co-ordinate paired reading and family learning – below:
Want to introduce vocabulary to help learners flourish during the writing process? If so, check out The 500 Words Alphabot resource from the BBC by clicking the image below.
Click on Alphabot to churn out a random selection of words. Click on any of those words to get synonyms and antonyms for that word. A fabulous freebie!
Click on the image below to download a list of techniques that can be used when teaching learners how to describe, narrate, inform, persuade and analyse.
The table is taken from a guideline created by the Institute of Education Sciences, based on their four recommendations for developing effective writers:
1) Provide learners with the opportunity to write daily
2) Teach learners how to create a variety of genres
3) Teach sentence fluency, handwriting, spelling and keyboard skills
4) Create an engaged community of writers.
Click the image above for the full practice guide.
To top off a week of Scots Language themed resources, Education Scotland have produced a grid which houses links that can be used to support the teaching of Scots across the curriculum.
Click the image above to download the grid.
Continuing with this week’s theme of Scots Language . . .
Scuilwab is another great resource that can be used to support the teaching of Scots Language in schools. The Scottish version of ‘Pop Goes the Weasel‘ is worth a look.
Scuilwab – click on the image above.
Another resource to support the teaching of Scots in the classroom – Burns’ Night looming is the perfect stimulus.
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HIGHLAND LITERACY 