Young people can take part in the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge 2017, whether individually or as part of a school. You sign up at your local library to read 6 books and there are challenges and rewards to collect along the way. Best of all, it’s FREE! You can find a link to it here

What a great day yesterday at the launch of the Argyll and Bute pilot for the early acquisition of literacy in primary 1. A fantastic group of teachers from 11  schools across the authority engaged with the draft guidance and had valuable learning discussions with partner schools and the whole group. In particular discussions focused around planning for the learning environment, working effectively within multi composite settings and how to implement the guidance over the next year. We also had excellent presentations on engaging readers with texts, sensory phonics and writing and parental engagement.

The Guidance will remain in draft format for the next year, during which time we will gather resources and evidence of impact.  Introductory workshops on the guidance will be held in all clusters over the next session to support its implementation across the authority in 2018-2019. Meanwhile, the guidance is available for any school to read, comment on and work with within their own settings. Any comments on it should be emailed to Clare Bryden, PT Literacy. The document is available here: Early acquisition of literacy in P1

Document which details changes to the early level Benchmarks, with additions highlighted in yellow and removals / other significant elements in boxed comments: Early level changes

Document with brief outline of changes to levels 2/3/4: Levels 2 3 4 changes

The final Benchmarks for Literacy and English have been published and  can be found at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/LiteracyEnglishBenchmarks.pdf

The National Literacy Trust has a programme for children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Children taking part in the project are taught book choice strategies and are able to choose free books of their own to keep at three events throughout the year, thus sustaining their positive experiences of books and reading. The Trust also provide training, resources and support to help schools encourage a whole school reading for enjoyment culture. The Trust isn’t currently taking any new primary schools but you can add your details to an expressions of interest form to be informed of future opportunities: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/yrp

Examples of holistic assessments for early to fourth level in writing can be found under Staff / Sharing Good Practice /  AMF & Holistic assessments. These were put together by Argyll and Bute staff who attended the assessment and moderation facilitator training in May.

This copy of Bloom’s question fans has a wide variety of questions which you can ask your children / pupils or which they can ask each other to encourage them to think more deeply and effectively about the information they read or listen to. Questions are organised according to the skills they develop – remembering, understanding, applying, analysing, evaluating and creating. An excellent resource both for the classroom and for using at home when you’re wondering how to develop your child’s thinking skills.

On behalf of the Argyll Literacy Forum, I’d like to say many thanks to the staff at John Logie Baird primary, to the presenters and to all 40 of you who turned out for last night’s literacy twilight in Helensburgh, despite it being the start of a very sunny holiday weekend. We had workshops on reciprocal reading, effective use of assessments to support learners, supporting literacy in the secondary classroom, using the ELC tracker, using sensory approaches to writing and the sharing of experiences of using Read Write Inc. We also had presentations from community learning and from adult literacy on the importance of supporting family literacy. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of the evening and we look forward to the next one on the 7th June in Dunoon. Powerpoints from the workshops will be uploaded onto the site as I receive them.

This PowerPoint has been produced by Glasgow authority to encourage staff to follow a ‘three read approach,’ whereby pupils engage with the same book 3 times, each time developing their understanding and analysis skills to encourage a reading culture: Glasgow’s 3 read approach

A reminder that the Helensburgh & Lomond Literacy twilight will be taking place at John Logie Baird primary from 1615 to 1820 this Thursday, the 25th May. Workshops range from supporting literacy difficulties in the secondary classroom, to using sensory stories with complex learners as well as looking at the ELC tracker, fun phonic interventions and the effective use of assessments. Anyone involved in the education of learners from birth to adult is welcome.