East Dunbartonshire Council has opted to use a resource called Word Aware within its nurseries and schools to increase the vocabulary of children.  Lynn, Kate and Valerie are having training on its use and March is going to be a month with a literacy focus as we introduce some of the ideas from the course.

We have looked at how our colleagues in Clober Nursery have embraced the scheme, and have got lots of great ideas from them.  We are introducing “Author of the Month” , and will be looking at the work of Julia Donaldson in March.  There is lots of rhyme in Julia’s books and plenty of interesting words, ideas and characters to explore.  The walls in the book corner will reflect the work of the Author of the Month- please come in and see what we have been up to.  We will also identify interesting new words which we will make our Words of the Week.

As well as all this, we are relaunching the Nursery Lending Library – we are putting the Lending Library books out, in baskets, on the hall table on Thursdays, and if your child would like to borrow one, please just fill in what you have borrowed on your child’s page in their group folder and mark it off when you bring it back.  If your child doesn’t come to nursery on a Thursday – just ask your keyworker and she will get the books out for you!

In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, it is even more important not to forget about the power and pleasure of reading books.  Children that are read to regularly tend to find learning to read far easier and have better vocabulary.