This month’s ’50 Word Fiction’ from the Scottish Book Trust asks you to ‘Write a story featuring mist or fog.’ This is a great opportunity to develop descriptive language through the setting.

The deadline is Tuesday 26 March 2019. The two Young Writers categories are open to all children and young people from 5 to 18, and there is an all age catergory for Gaelic writers.

CLICK HERE – ’50 Word Fiction’

Thank you to Munlochy and Tore Primary Schools for sharing their work!

Curious?  Good.  That means they’re doing their job.

In 2016, a project was conceived to create a motivational and progressive culture in the joy of reading.  The project, ‘Story Sacks’, designed for P1-3 children and their parents, aimed to encourage the development of early literacy skills alongside establishing a lifelong love of books. The Story Sacks are fiction based packs which contain fiction and non-fiction books, games, activities and ideas to spark conversations and encourage the development of children’s imaginations.  The project, enables parents and families to engage in their children’s learning and create and sustain partnerships between the school and home.

CLICK HERE – Tore and Munloch Story Sacks Blog Post

Following the Story Sacks success, and to progress the culture of engagement in literacy within our schools, in 2017, the non-fiction based ‘Curiosity Kit’ project was born. These kits were aimed at P4-7 children and were designed, in partnership with all stakeholders within the schools. Their aim, like their sister project, was to provide each child with the equal opportunity of engaging with high-quality books and resources and encourage the development of lifelong skills in Reading for Information.

• 120 unique kits, each themed around a non-fiction topic, EG. Space, Gardening, World Religion, Politics, British History, Great Artists, Healthy Eating.
• Each kit contains: 1-2 non-fiction books, a magazine, a leaflet and an item/game.
• Kits are taken home, to be shared with their families and returned a fortnight later.
• Upon return, children rate the kits, justify their opinions and share facts they learned with other classmates.
• Each year group has specifically sourced materials to motivate and encourage engagement for children of their ages: P4 – Science based, P5 – , P6 – History based and P7 – Careers.

Although many of the kits hint towards the world of work, the majority of the P7 packs, in particular, incorporate elements which are designed to stimulate discussion and knowledge about this.  Some of these include: University Syllabuses and course information, examples of successful entrepreneurs, leaflets on skills required for certain work (such as skills for hairdressing) and books entitled ‘I’m good at History – what job can I do.’

Overall, these kits were designed to motivate children and to inspire a love of reading.  Even more so, they were created in mind to be stimulating, engaging and deeply interesting, so, for the children, reading is a positive experience.  Below are some quotes from some of the children and parents from our school:

“My son just LOVES them!  He tears into the packs as soon as he’s home and we love sharing the contents together.  He’s so interested in the books that he doesn’t even realise that he’s reading, or that it’s homework!”  Parent of P6 Pupil

“They make me want to read…and that’s something I don’t normally ever want to do!” P7 Pupil

“I really like sharing these (the kits) with my son.  He even made brownies with his sister last weekend, from a recipe included in the pack!” Parent of P5 Pupil

When adults play and talk together with children they play alongside children, following the child’s lead, modelling language and social interactions through play. Using a text as a stimulus, practitioners can plan their environment to enable play based experiences related to the text to support children’s language and motor skill development. This can be used alongside the guidance in Sequence and Narrative development through the development of children’s retelling skills.

The ‘Using Texts to Play and Talk Together‘ document provides guidance on how practitioners can use the plan-do-review model to plan for play based experiences that provide children with the opportunity to engage with texts, reflecting on their play. The model provides the opportunity for the adult to play and talk together with the children as well as observing children’s play.

CLICK HERE – Using Texts to Play and Talk Together

CLICK HERE: Original post shared by the Highland STEM Team

To coincide with The Lost Words being placed in every School in Scotland, five twilight sessions are being delivered across Highland to support practitioners engaging with the text. 

• Inverness- Abriachan Forest Classroom, IV3 8LB
  Thursday 21^st of March, 4-6pm
• Fort William- An Drochit, Glen Nevis, PH33 6PH
  Monday, 25^th of March, 4-6pm
• Isle of Skye- Broadford Primary, IV49 9AG
  Tuesday, 26^th of March, 4-6pm
• Strathspey- Abernethy Primary, PH25 3EG
  Tuesday, 26^th of March, 4-6pm
• Caithness- Noss Primary, KW1 4DT
  Thursday, 28^th of March, 4-6pm

APPLY ON THE CPD CALENDAR

The Language and Literacy network is a multidisciplinary forum which brings together individuals with shared interests in language and literacy but different knowledge and expertise.

Last year they hosted a series of events on four different themes:

• Developing early language through reading

• Improving early reading acquisition

• Supporting multilingual language and literacy

• Motivating reading for pleasure.

They have filmed these events and have shared them on their new website. This is a great opportunity for professional development with research informed practice.

CLICK HERE to find out more and join the network

World Book Day – Thursday 7th March 2019

The annual celebration of the world’s love for books, Word Book Day, takes place this week on Thursday 7th March 2019. The World Book Day Website is full of brilliant ideas to support Early Learning and Childcare (ELCC), schools and partners in supporting World Book Day.

For age/stage specific resources, click the images below:

In the experiences and outcomes across the organisers of listening and talking, reading and writing, children partly demonstrate their verbal reasoning and oral language comprehension skills through asking and answering questions.

Back in June we published our Blank Language Question Fans to support developmentally appropriate questioning linked to the Words Up Key Message ‘Be Careful With Questions’.

Aged between 8 and 18? What better way to put questioning skills into action than by getting real purpose and audience in asking questions through First Minister’s Question Time?

Questions to be submitted by the 3rd of March – CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION

Earlier this year, children in Primary 2 and Primary received their Read, Write, Count packs. The Read, Write, Count packs have been designed to promote enjoyment and family engagement through books and games.

The Scottish Book Trust are offering an online twilight session for Primary 2 and Primary 3 teachers on ‘Enhancing Family Engagement with Read, Write, Count’. This will take place on Thursday 14th March 2019, 3.45pm – 5pm.

This session will show you how you can build on the gifting of your Read, Write Count bags through fun, flexible workshops for families. The Scottish Book Trust will explore the role of Read, Write, Count in family engagement and overall school improvement, discuss how to organise workshops to best suit the families you work with and provide a range of activity suggestions and resources for you to use.

CLICK HERE to find out more and apply for a place

The Emerging Literacy Update from February 2019 includes information on:

• The February/ March 2019 Emerging Literacy Networks
• The content debrief at the January 2019 Emerging Literacy Buddy Network.

CLICK HERE – Emerging Literacy Update February 2019

Illustrator Sav Akyuz of ‘I Am Bear and Bear Moves’ will be on Authors Live on Thursday 21st February, 11am – 11.40am.

Authors Live sessions can be watched live, or can be accessed in the Watch on Demand section of the Scottish Book Trust website.

CLICK HERE – SIGN UP AUTHORS LIVE: SAV AKYUZ

Date: Tuesday 21st February 2019
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.