Next month [May] is the National ‘Share a story’ month. This would be an ideal opportunity for teachers to highlight the importance and the fun of sharing a book within the classroom, as a whole school and at home. Further ideas can be found in the HLP booklet ‘Reading for Enjoyment‘.

We would be interested to hear of any whole school events/project set up to promote ’sharing stories’ that you are planning and also any home/school sharing books promotion.

Hilton Primary School had a great idea for promoting reading for enjoyment amongst their pupils and staff. They called it ‘Extreme reading’. The pupils arranged for a photo to be taken of them reading in unusual settings and this was sent into the school for display. The pupils loved it and even the teachers took part. An example can be found in the sharing box under reading for enjoyment.

Why don’t you try it?

Look out for us at the Learning and Teaching festival in Glasgow’s SECC on WEdnesday 23rd and Thursday 24th september 2008 where we will be showcasing the Highland Literacy Project. You will find us in the main hall on the Highland Council stand LA13. We would be delighted to hear about any literacy activities that are going on in your school and answer any questions you may have about HLP.

To encourage reading for enjoyment, especially amongst boys, we are delighted that we have been able to persuade both Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC and Ross County FC to be photographed for our new posters campaign entitled ” YOU’RE BOOKED!”.

The two posters show the players reading books, and will be sent to every Highland Primary and Secondary School as part of Highland’s drive to improve literacy skills amongst our young people. It is hoped that each school will display them in a key position and that the pupils will be inspired to read more books.

You are also able to download them from our website www.hvlc.org.uk/hlp . Look under ‘reading for enjoyment’ on the right hand side. LTScotland have also arranged to put them on their main website

We are grateful for LTScotland and Highland Libraries for funding . If the posters prove successful, LTS are hoping to persuade other premier football clubs to take up the challenge to enjoy football and books!

Scottish Borders have recently completed a new Literacy website which is fantastic. It brings all the top interactive literacy sites or pages together under one site. 

It contains a collection of Literacy activities which they have categorised according to the draft CfE levels although I would look at higher levels too.

One of the best aspects are the online interactive books

http://www.educationict.org.uk/literacy 

There are many excellent websites that allow pupils to play interactive literacy games. Not only are they good fun, they help to promote literacy skills in an active and engaging way. Here are some that are well worth a look.

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks1bitesize/literacy

www.roythezebra.com

www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/literacy

www.ictgames.com

www.teachit.co.uk

Please let me know of other sites you use for active learning of literacy.

Here are some tips suggested by phase 4 schools that may help make your HLP information sessions for parents successful-

• Use a writing session for pupils to write individual invitations to their parents. Add a reply section.
• ask the pupils to lead some sessions, for example, showing parents how to play spelling games using made up words
• Have an HLP wall display in the school’s entrance to catch parents’ interest prior to the event. Include photographs of the pupils in action.
• consider having an open afternoon for parents to see how the HLP works in their child’s own classroom
• include a book bring and swap table for parents

These are just a few suggestions. Please let me know if you have tried some more ideas.

NUMBER ONE REQUEST FROM TEACHERS

Have you written questions for novels that you are using with your class?  This is the number one sharing request from teachers using the Highland Literacy Project as teacher led oral questionning is a key aspect.If you have questions prepared please send them to lorna.sim@highland.gov.uk and I will addd them to the ’sharing box’.

Remember that the sharing box on the website contains lots of other literacy materials made by highland teachers for all to adapt and share.

Badger Publishers www.badger-publishing.co.uk have a very good selection of dual language reading books for infants up to end of primary/beginning of secondary. Just type  ‘Polish’ into the search box on their website.

You may find this resource- Rapid readers, published by Heinemann (Pearson/Longman/Harcourt) of interest for your struggling older readers. They are interesting and modern reading books aimed at pupils of 7-11 years who have a reading age of 5-8 years (level A/B). New pre -level A books are being published in the summer. The books contain both fiction and non fiction sections and both have a before- reading guide for teachers which is very useful. The website is www.heinemann.co.uk

What makes this resource stand out however is the accompanying software. Not only can the pupil follow the story on screen and orally but there is a voice recognition facility. This means the pupil can read the on screen text into a microphone and will be prompted when stuck.

I thought the price was very reasonable. The HLP team have some copies to view although it may be better to contact the rep directly for a 30 day evaluation. morag.gibson@pearson.com