The General Teaching Council Scotland (GTCS) have an exciting Literacy themed competition to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

How do you think a classroom will look in 50 years?

GTCS are looking for a creative response to the question. For more details on how you and your class can get involved, click the link below.

CLICK HERE – GTCS Competition

Classtools.net have another great resource, Breaking News Generator!

Click the image above to access the Breaking News Generator!. Learners can then add their own headline, scrolling ticket and an image.

Looking ahead to next month . . .
International Literacy Day – Tuesday 8th September 2015
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope.” – Kofi Annan

On the 8th of September people across the world will celebrate International Literacy Day.

Celebrate International Literacy Day within your class or as a school.  It’s a great opportunity for an Interdisciplinary Topic, making natural links with Literacy to Global Citizenship and Learning for Sustainability.

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CLICK HERE for the International Literacy Day Website which includes event ideas . . . My personal favourite is an “Open Mic Night” for your school community.

Check out the Global Dimension website to access resources to support Global Citizenship and Sustainable Development

Celebrate cultures and diversity through each class hosting a different themed event from a country – CLICK HERE for a great link with stories linked to countries across the world.

How do you teach new vocabulary to learners? 

The Building Vocabulary for Better Literacy PowerPoint within the Literacy Toolkit, suggests that in order to store new words effectively we need knowledge about three key areas:

1. Word Knowledge (semantics)
2. Phonological Awareness
3. Kinaesthetic/ Visual Representation

The Pip St.John – Pre-Teaching Vocabulary resource provides free teaching materials which can be used when teaching learners new vocabulary.

Check it out by clicking the image at the top of this post.

Check out the Storynory website for access to a number of stories and audio books.

CLICK HERE – Storynory

Please see information below re CPD delivered by the Speech and Language team.

PLANNING FOR AND SUPPORTING CHILDREN WITH SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTIES IN THE PRIMARY SETTING

An interactive whole day session suitable for: class teachers, ASN teachers, SMT, PSAs.

This one-day course will focus on identifying and supporting children with speech and language difficulties within the classroom. Learning will be done through active tasks, collaborative problem solving and analysis of real-life videos of children with SLCN (speech language and communication needs)

Aims of the course:

• To understand why speech, language and communication matters
• To develop an understanding of all the different stages and steps of the communication chain
• To know the difference between the terms speech, language and communication
• To understand the role of SLT and how we can work together and help each other
• To think about the link between poor language skills and behaviour
• To think about the link between speech, language and emergent literacy
• To know basic strategies to help children understand and learn new language
• To understand how non-verbal communication and using visual supports can support children with SLCN.

INVERGORDON – Thursday 24^th September 2015 – Primary

INVERGORDON – Friday 25^th September 2015 – Secondary PSAs/ SfLT

DINGWALL – Wednesday 7^th October 2015

INVERNESS – Tuesday 1^st December 2015

WICK – Thursday 14^th April 2016

FORT WILLIAM – Tuesday 10^th May 2016

Please apply through the CPD Calendar

Have you seen Fakebook? It’s a free online tool from ClassTools.net that can be used to create a profile for a fictional or historical character.

Use it with learners to create a character profile for a character from a text that they’re reading. Click the image above to access the software.

On Monday the P1 – P3 campaign Read, Write, Count launched its website. The website contains videos, tips and ideas for parents/carers to support their child in their literacy and numeracy learning.

Watch the video below – this is one you may wish to share with your staff and your parents/carers via school website or blog:

CLICK HERE – Read, Write, Count

Check out the ‘Why?’ section for more information. The ‘Read’ and ‘Write’ sections include ideas to support literacy development in the home environment. There are a number of videos and ideas that can be shared with parents/carers through information sessions and home/school communication.

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

Building Vocabulary for Better Literacy – The objective of this PPT is to explore the research and strategies around pre-teaching vocabulary and relating this to improving literacy levels and learning outcomes for children and young people.

CLICK HERE – Building Vocabulary for Better Literacy

It was great to meet the new Highland Primary and Secondary Probationers today at the Highland Council Headquarters. Please find the information which was shared re CPD events below:

CLICK HERE for information on following the Highland Literacy Blog.