As part of Family Learning, Quality Indicator 2.5 within How Good Is Our School (4th Edition), schools are expected to actively promote lifelong learning, both in families, and as individual learners.

Families may require support with their own Literacy learning.

High Life Highland’s Adult Learning Team support adult learners across Highland.
CLICK HERE – Adult Learning High Life Highland

Information on their Adult Learning programmes can be found on the following link:
CLICK HERE – Adult Learning Programmes

Teaching different modes of poetry such as haiku, limerick, cinquain, and free verse? Check out Scholastic’s Poetry Idea Engine to support the teaching of poetry.

CLICK HERE – Poetry Idea Engine

Fancy a writer, poet, playwright, illustrator or storyteller to come and work with the children in your school?

Scottish Book Trust is excited to offer a brand new pilot programme that will offer 6 schools in Scotland a fully-funded author-in-residence.

Each residency will contain 10 sessions carried out by an author from their database. Their database includes almost 700 professional writers, poets, playwrights, illustrators, performance poets and storytellers.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday 25 May 2016 at noon.

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION – Scottish Book Trust Residency

The library at Inverness Royal Academy has been involved in some great work where pupils within the school worked alongside Hilton Primary School to support the rollout of the Primary 1 Bookbug Pack through Shared Reading sessions.

Through their work, the volunteers from Inverness Royal Academy developed their teamwork skills, their ability to communicate with others and their digital literacy skills. 

Why not contact your Network Librarian and see how you can work together?

Developing typing skills through your Literacy Workshops? Nitro Type is a website which allows children to put their touch typing skills to the test. Visit the website by clicking the image above and create an account for your class.

CLICK HERE – Nitro Type

Elaine Mead, Chief Executive of the NHS, visited two of our Primary Schools last week to look at Emerging Literacy in practice. During her visit to Crown Primary School and Hilton Primary School, both in Inverness, Elaine learned how both of the schools have used the Developmental Continua, taking a developmental approach to literacy.

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She loved seeing how the staff had used the Phonological Awareness and the Pre-Handwriting resources in the classroom. It was great to hear that through the work between Education and Allied Health Professionals within Care and Learning, children’s progress in Literacy is being identified and nurtured through the use of the Emerging Literacy training and materials.

It was great to see the independent engagement of the children with the tasks which were set during the visit. The personal favourites were the Phonic Phone which allowed learners to hear the phonemes and the scissor tasks which developed scissor skills.

Check out the Emerging Literacy materials for further information

May is ‘National Share a Story Month’ . . . a great excuse to develop children’s storytelling skills. The Scottish Book Trust have created Storytelling Relay Resources.

Click the image below to access the resources for Early – Second Levels.

If you cannot develop extended storytelling right now, but you’d still like to touch on ‘National Share a Story Month’ access Scottish Book Trust’s condensed resource below:
CLICK HERE – If You Only Do One Thing

Emerging Literacy during 2016/2017

In preparation for next session, we are interested in finding out the schools who plan to include Emerging Literacy within their School Improvement Plan in 2016/2017. If Emerging Literacy is part of your school improvement plan for 2016/2017, please complete the two minute survey below.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/RWYQZN9

CLICK HERE to download the April Emerging Literacy update.

Visual supports enhance understanding of the environment, help to organise information and ourselves. Visual supports stay in sight long after the spoken word has gone.

They understand what they SEE better than what they hear.

Visual supports can help children to understand and anticipate what’s going to happen. They provide structure and predictability and promote independence. Visual supports enhance children’s understanding therefore can reduce anxiety and enhance the child’s ability to learn.

CLICK HERE – Highland Using Visual Support Good Practice Guidelines

When teaching children to source information, one of the skills we teach is skimming and scanning. The Big Scan Game from the BBC allows children to develop their skimming and scanning skills against the clock.

CLICK HERE – The Big Scan Game

To support strategy based reading instruction within your Literacy Workshops, check out the Strategies for Teaching Reading document.