News – Page 2 – East Ayrshire Literacy and English

Reading Group Time – What is your focus?

When planning your reading group sessions, what is the focus? Reading group sessions which involve the teacher require a chunk of teacher time out of your literacy session. To ensure everyone is benefiting from this time, we have created a guide to what you might focus on during your reading group sessions.

This guide also includes some suggestions for how you can provide essential practice in developing reading fluency.

Daily and ongoing assessment is key to ensuring that our teaching and learning is geared to what children need to make progress. This reading assessment tool can help you plan, over a term /year, which skills children are acquiring and which they need to practise. Our suggestion is you can focus on specific aspects e.g. answering inferential questions, or retelling the main points with a particular group and record how individuals are doing.

Submissions for the First Minister’s Reading Challenge this year

Scottish Book Trust have asked that we share the following information about submissions for the First Minister’s Reading Challenge this year. (First Minister’s Reading Challenge)

We understand that this year has been especially disruptive for schools, and that they have had to continually adapt their way of working. We also know that their time is precious, so want to encourage submissions which are short and simple, and show how they’ve kept children and young people engaged with reading despite the challenges – whether that’s big or small activities.

By entering, schools will be considered for a national award and could receive books for their setting. Every school that submits will also receive a free festival kit full of materials and the chance to take part in our online Celebration Festival with author events and activities from 14 June.

If it is of interest, we are hosting a webinar on Submitting an entry to the Reading Challenge on Thursday at 4.30pm which will include practical ideas and advice for schools who are planning their submission.

Schools don’t need to have registered for the challenge so far to submit, and we want to emphasise that entries can be in whatever format suits best. The deadline for submitting an entry is Thursday 29 April at 5pm.

The Two O’Shanters – Robert Burns Workshop

If you’d like to add a twist to your Burns this year for Upper Primary and Secondary, take a look at this talented Performance Poet, Simon Lamb as recommended by SWEIC colleagues.

Simon is offering a workshop of @ 90 mins (start until break/break until lunch or afternoon slot) for £150 in person or a 45-50 mins £75 online/Covid friendly workshop (special prices for our SWEIC Group – he lives in Prestwick!).

Here’s a wee taster of his work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svj5KxEiwxI

DARTs – Teaching Reading Comprehension Wed 21.10.20 at 4pm

DARTs are activities that are designed to challenge pupils to engage with texts. They ask them to read closely and to interpret the information carefully. The aim is to improve pupils’ reading comprehension and to develop them as critical readers. DARTs can often go beyond the comprehension question, which can sometimes only ask pupils to move information, rather than to understand it. Join us on the Active Literacy Teams site.

Further Giglets Training Webinars for EA staff

The fantastic Giglets team is offering further Giglets training webinars for staff who have yet to attend this training. The Giglets resource has been bought for all EA schools for 3 years and most of our schools have already signed up.

The Giglets resource is an online library of books from a range of genres. The SAC Literacy team is developing a resource to support using Giglets text to model reading into writing for the main text types of writing we teach.

https://events-emea3.adobeconnect.com/content/connect/c1/3941009992/en/events/catalog.html?from-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fgiglets.adobeconnect.com#=undefinedcurrentSearchTagcurrentSearchTagcurrentSearchTagcurrentSearchTag=4035157332

Teaching Children to Listen- Professional Learning Session with the SAC Speech and Language Team

The Scottish Attainment Speech and Language therapy team is hosting an online session ‘Teaching Children To Listen’ on MS Teams. You can join the session which starts at 3.45pm tomorrow, Wednesday 30th September here.

The session is suitable for any practitioner or manager in Primary or Secondary who would like to learn more about speech, language & communication to support the children & young people they work with.

Aim :	To raise awareness of attention and listening skills and the significant link to literacy development and attainment. How to support children and young people’s attention and listening.
Content:	What are attention and listening skills? How attention and listening skills develop. How to support development of attention and listening skills e.g. resources available. The link between attention and listening skills and literacy. The link between attention and listening skills and attainment. When and how to seek support from Speech and Language Therapy.

Unpacking SAC DUG

SAC DUG hopes you all enjoyed the long weekend and also the good weather.

The SAC Literacy Team hopes you can join us on MS Teams on Tuesday 22nd September at 15.45 – 17.00 to learn more about SAC DUG

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGU5YzJlZjgtNDc2MS00Y2M3LWEzNjQtZWQ5OGQ0MjMyZmE4%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ccd32ca3-16ce-428f-9541-372d6b051929%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2209d86f61-9bdc-432f-b8c6-383742f1503d%22%7d
Tap on the link or paste it in a browser to join. Hope to see you then.

SAC DUG unleashed

The SAC literacy team is running a session on how to get the most from our SAC DUG resource. (Scottie the Attainment Canine, Delivering Understandable Grammar.) We are hosting this on MSTeams on Tuesday 22nd September at 15.45 – 17.00. Join the meeting using this link: You’re invited to a Teams meeting!
SAC DUG CLPL
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OGU5YzJlZjgtNDc2MS00Y2M3LWEzNjQtZWQ5OGQ0MjMyZmE4%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22ccd32ca3-16ce-428f-9541-372d6b051929%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2209d86f61-9bdc-432f-b8c6-383742f1503d%22%7d
Tap on the link or paste it in a browser to join. Hope to see you then.

Developing a Reading Culture Planning and Evaluation Toolkit

If you plan to develop a reading culture in your school, this helpful document can help you plan and measure the steps you take. You can access through this link: https://www.readingchallenge.scot/resources/how-good-our-school-4-planning-and-evaluation-toolkit. You may need to register for FMRC to do it but that’s obviously free.

Scottish Book Trust Read, Write, Count webinars

The Scottish Book Trust wanted to get in touch to let you know about the upcoming online webinars on Read, Write, Count. These sessions will support Primary 1-3 teachers to gift the bags to pupils effectively and safely during the current circumstances, give them practical advice and ideas for utilising the bags, and showcase online resources available to staff to engage with families and encourage home-learning. Learning professionals can sign up for the free webinars via the website and they recommend P1-3 teachers and support staff register to attend.

Best wishes,
Rachael

Rachael Laburn School Communities Manager

07827336867 | @rach_laburn | @ScottishBkTrust

Scottish Book Trust

Browse our Home Activities Hub to find engaging resources for children and teens.