To help children on their reading journey, Scottish Book Trust is gifting Off to the Park to every Primary 1-3 child in a special school or special needs setting in Scotland. Each school will receive an additional copy of Off to the Park for their school library to help create a link between home and school.

Off to the Park contains high-contrast images, tactile features and Braille-style numbering. It is suitable for children with a variety of additional support needs.

The books will arrive in schools in January.
Gifting the books offers a great excuse to invite parents and carers, as well as other members of the local community, into school. It is also recommend that you use the books in school before sending them home to make a link between home and school.

You can also listen to an audio version of Off to the Park at: scottishbooktrust.com/reading-and-stories/bookbug/tactile-books. Parents and carers can use the audio version at home alongside the physical copy. You could share the audio version in school after the books have been gifted to create a link between home and school.

Schools can register for the challenge here.

On the 21st of November at 2pm, the Scottish Book Trust will be running an online webinar on Building a Reading Culture. This takes place during Book Week Scotland 2019.

This session will outline the features of a reading culture, the programmes delivered by Scottish Book Trust to help you foster this culture in your school and practical examples to inspire you to get started, wherever you are on your reading journey. 

This webinar is aimed at Primary teachers and staff. Register below to tune in. If you have any questions, please contact readingchallenge@scottishbooktrust.com

Please click the link below to register for this Highland only event!

https://scottishbooktrust.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_b5KckW_YQD-qRcNhQbv7Pw

Book Week Scotland – 18 – 24th November 2019

Schools will now have received their Bookbug P1 bags which contain three amazing books from the Bookbug Picture Book Prize shortlist. Read these three amazing books with your class and vote for your favourite book on the website.

The three books are:

·          Sophie Johnson: Unicorn Expert by Morag Hood

·         The Prince and the Witch and the Thief and the Bears by Alastair Chisholm

·         The Station Mouse by Meg McLaren

Schools can sign up to vote for their favourite book on the shortlist – this is a fantastic way to bring the books to life, and involve the children in a national programme to select their favourite book!

There are also a range of resources available to help teachers to make the most of the prize. Additionally, even though the books are gifted to P1 pupils, the prize is not restricted to this age group – in fact, the bags are a great way to get older pupils involved in paired reading.

As part of the Bookbug (P1) and Read, Write, Count (P2 & P3) campaigns, children across Scotland will receive a book bag. The packs will arrive in schools between October and November. Children in Gaelic Medium will receive an English and a Gaelic pack.

Please click the link below for more information, suggested learning resources and contact details if you have too few, or have received a surplus of packs.

https://highlandliteracy.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/bb_rwc-2019_2020.pdf

As part of Book Week Scotland (18th – 24th November 2019), the Scottish Book Trust will gift every P2 and P3 child in Scotland two free books.

The Read, Write, Count team have developed online CLPL webinars on bag gifting for Primary 2 and Primary 3 teachers to attend. These sessions will give an overview of the Read, Write, count programme. This will include what to expect in this year’s bags, related activities  and resources and ideas for planning a gifting event.

Registration can be found via the following links.

FULL CAPACITY – Read, Write, Count – Primary 2 Gifting (Tuesday 8th October: 16:30 – 17:30) https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5L3jNrguQ62vV5miHhHBig

STILL SPACES – Read, Write, Count – Primary 3 Gifting (Thursday 10th October: 16:30 17:30) https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_yLbvyXebRDWmrTIW91L9ww

Both webinars will be available to watch afterwards for any staff unable to attend the live session.

Epic! Books is a digital library for kids offering free access to 35000 children’s books and videos.

Educators can access this digital library for free!

Search for books based on topic, title or author. This is a great resource when looking for fiction and non fiction texts to share with your class or for pupils to access independently.

Pupils can also access the texts using a pupil log in and class code which will be generated once you create an educator’s account.

Books can also be sorted according to reading level/difficulty.

Click this link to visit Epic! Books