Have fun from day one! – Tips on how best to Play, Talk and Read with your wee one, and free things to do around Scotland.
Please visit the following website for more information:
Category: Literacy
Practical Solutions for Early Intervention
This document ‘Practical Solutions for Early Intervention’ can be found in all Falkirk Council early level establishments.
It contains practical examples of learning experiences aimed at talking and listening, reading and writing.
This is a valuable document and embraces the aims of Falkirk Council’s Literacy Strategy.
The scanned document can be accessed from here: Practical Solutions for Early Intervention.
For more information, please contact the Curriculum Support Team at Camelon Education Centre.
Pre-Birth to Three – Literacy Guidance From Education Scotland
Literacy and numeracy are fundamental for children to function effectively and to contribute to society.
This link will take you to advice from Education Scotland relating to literacy and numeracy. It contains short videos and guidance too.
Every Day’s a Learning Day – Literacy
This animation is to assist parents and carers to support their child’s learning and development at home, based on Education Scotland’s publication “Every day is a learning day”.
It is part of one of the Early Years Collaborative initiatives in Falkirk Council.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/QWeYMNxNUpc" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
Developing Reading Skills Using Blooms
Mary Jalland at Westquarter Primary School attended a school based CAT session on reading where Sharon Wallace, Curriculum Support Officer for Falkirk Council, talked about using Blooms fans with pupils to develop deeper understanding of 'texts'.
Mary went back to class and tried this out using 'The Gruffalo' as a text with some stunning results.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/i9nJgX9SYlY" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
Walkie Talkie Group
This group is run jointly by Pre-School Home Visiting Education Service and Speech and Language Therapy (Pre-School ASN). Runs weekly during term time at Laurieston Centre, James Street, Laurieston. Children attend with parent/carer. Basic communication skills and Makaton signing are encouraged using a structured programme of songs, rhymes and activities. Free play at the start allows time for observation of skills, peer interaction and discussion with parents.
Further information can be accessed via:
http://www.dseinternational.org/en-gb/
http://www.makaton.org/aboutMakaton/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/article/makaton
Janet Hutton – Pre-school Home Visiting Teacher
Tel: 01324 501983
Heather Lynch – Pre-School ASN Speech and Language Therapist
Tel: 01324 623485
Baby Group (Pre-School Home Visiting Education Service)
This group is run by Pre-School Home Visiting Education Service. Group is for babies who have Additional Support Needs and their parents/carers. Meets monthly on first Monday of the month in Camelon Education Centre Community Wing.
Aims of this group are:
- To enable parents/carers to have contact with others in a similar situation
- To encourage development and interaction through play and song
- To raise awareness of support and services available in Falkirk area
- To increase confidence and enable parents/carers to access further opportunities
For further information on this, please contact:
Pre-school Home Visiting Teachers – Maureen, Janet, Alison and Nancy.
Tel: 01324 501664, 501983, 503713, 501687
Significant aspects of learning in literacy and English
Literacy skills are embedded within all the curriculum areas. Teachers and learners will focus on developing the skills detailed in the Experiences and Outcomes. Key aspects of learning within literacy and English relate to the way learners:
- engage with and create a broad range of texts, including Scottish and Scots texts
- use reading strategies to understand, analyse and evaluate texts
- find and use information
- develop critical literacy skills, including evaluating sources
- write with increasing accuracy, making effective use of spelling, grammar and punctuation
- create texts of increasing complexity using more sophisticated language
- develop and use higher-order thinking skills.
Falkirk’s Curriculum Support Team will be delivering a range of professional learning opportunities this year based around these significant aspects of learning in literacy.
These opportunities include a range of Active Literacy courses based around active strategies and methodologies for spelling and phonics, reading and writing, sharing good practice networks, higher order reading skills, effective questioning in literacy and using a range of media-linked genre to develop literacy skills.
Blogging About Active Literacy
Mary Jalland, Class Teacher at Westquarter Primary School, Falkirk, has created two Active Literacy blogs. Mary’s blogs are a great way of sharing effective teaching and learning in literacy, as well as sharing resources relating to the P1 and P2 Active Literacy programme. Mary has included links through to pupils demonstrating the Active Literacy strategies and methodologies, as well as a great explanation of Active Learning in their class.
Please visit: http://mrsjallandphonics.primaryblogger.co.uk/atspin/
Active Literacy – FAQs
How can I support my child with their active literacy homework?
- You could attend an active literacy parent workshop which are held regularly at different primary schools. There are also parent leaflets which contain lots of helpful information and links through to useful websites to support literacy at home. Further information can be found at: https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/CurriculumSupport/2013/05/02/using-reciprocal-teaching-to-engage-parents-in-active-literacy/
What is a phoneme?
- A letter or group of letters that make a single sound, for example, ‘oi’ or ‘a’.
What are Elkonin boxes?
- These are used to teach phonemic awareness. Pupils listen out for the individual sounds and mark where they hear them in boxes.
What is diacritical marking?
- Diacritical marking is the use of symbols to mark single sounds/ phonemes (e.g. b, p), joined phonemes (e.g. sh, ch) and split phonemes (magic e words). It is a spelling strategy which is used as part of the ‘Active Literacy’ approach in schools. It is usually taught at Primary 4 and 5, though can be continued and developed in the upper stages. There are three parts to the code: a single dot which represents a single phoneme, a line which represents a joined phoneme and an arch which represents a split phoneme.
What is Reciprocal Teaching?
- This is a strategy used during Active Learning where children will work together to support and challenge each other. They may adopt roles such as ‘word reader’ or ‘word writer’.
Which spelling strategies are taught at school and how I can support my child with this?
- There are many spelling strategies taught in school. Some of the ‘fun’ spelling tasks which are used to learn common or tricky words include: Rainbow writing, fancy writing, spell-er-cise, bubble writing, big and little writing, type-em-up, rhyming words, newspaper letters and triangle spelling. Other strategies taught are: syllabification, mnemonics, words within words, word shape, spelling rules and compound words.
