Category Archives: Uncategorized

Emerging Literacy – Support Materials

Following the Emerging Literacy training which took place across the Authority towards the end of last session, the draft support materials are now available to download by clicking the images below.

Concepts of Print

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Oral Language

Communication

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Fine Motor Skills

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Phonological Awareness

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Support materials, in the form of developmental continua, have been created on the following areas (click the links to download):

Concepts of Print – CLICK HERE Developmental Continuum
Expressive Language – CLICK HERE Developmental Continuum
Understanding of Language – CLICK HERE Developmental Continuum
Pre-Handwriting – CLICK HERE Developmental Continuum
Phonological Awareness – CLICK HERE Developmental Continuum

A working group will continue to develop these materials over the 2015/2016 session. Please access the most up to date version of the materials by visiting the blog.

To support your engagement with the Primary One Literacy Assessment and Action Resource (POLAAR) we have created a support tool which allows you to use the materials above when engaging with the POLAAR: Child Observation and Child Observation with Actions documents.

The following document has connected the twenty aspects in the POLAAR observational checklist to the relevant areas within the continua:

CLICK HERE – POLAAR Child Observational Assessment and Development Links

The developmental overviews which are used in Early Years and Childcare settings in Highland can also be downloaded below:

Overview of Early (3 year old) Pre-school Skills – CLICK HERE
Overview of Pre-school (4 year old) Skills – CLICK HERE

Finding and Using Information

Finding and Using Information is one of the Sub-SALs highlighted in Education Scotland’s Literacy and English Assessing Progress and Achievement paper.

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Are we teaching learners how to find and use information on the internet? When search engines like Google conduct over 40,000 searches per second, how do our children and young people interrogate, reflect on, make inferences and draw conclusions about what they’ve found?

CLICK HERE for the Information and Critical Literacy section on Education Scotland’s website. It includes mini bites of information for pupils, parents and practitioners on finding and using information.

Evaluating Websites – Oxford Brookes University – a guide which asks you to question the sources you find online.

CLICK HERE for a blog post from Falkirk Council on Googling in the Primary classroom which links to further resources.

Canva – Create multi-modal texts

Want your learners to create multi-modal texts and develop their digital literacy skills?

Canva is a fabulous free (for many templates, colours and fonts) resource which can be used to create texts such as posters, collages and presentations online.

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Click the image above to visit the website, sign-up for account and let your learners get creative!

SSLN – Professional Learning Workshops

Following the SSLN Literacy Report, Education Scotland has created professional workshop materials to support practitioners with areas for development identified in the results of the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy (Literacy).

Check out the following resource areas:

You will find General Resources for each of the three modes, and levelled resources for First, Second and Third Levels underneath each Literacy mode.

A favourite of the Literacy Working Group . . . 

Language of Discussion Stems – these can be used by practitioners or learners as discussion starters. Perfect for use in group discussion alongside Bloom’s Question Fans.

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Talk with Confidence

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A new resource has been created and added to ‘The Literacy Toolkit’ section of our blog.

Talk with Confidence – The objective of this PPT is to explore the research and views around developing ‘individual’ and ‘group’ confidence when talking, and to generate professional dialogue and action relating to this with a view to improving experiences for the young people in school. 

CLICK HERE – Talk with Confidence

Political Literacy – Education Scotland

Click the image below to check out the new Political Literacy briefing paper from Education Scotland. The paper outlines the use of Political Literacy to develop Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and debate.

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Check out the following resources on the blog to develop HOTS and debate:
Highland Literacy – Bloom’s Taxonomy
Highland Literacy – De Bono’s Six Hats
Highland Literacy – SOLO Taxonomy
Highland Literacy – Diamond 9