The Literacy Committee

Throughout all activities, initiatives and plans carried out by the Literacy Committee, there is always the common theme and underlying goal of building a reading culture across the school. This means that we aim to engage all pupils from P1 to P7 and help build a lifelong love of reading and learning.

World Book Day

This year, the literacy committee have organised various events such as Roald Dahl Day and World Book Day. Roald Dahl Day saw the teacher dress up as favourite Roald Dahl characters and organise fantastic and creative lessons based on Roald Dahl books. In the lead up to World Book Day, each class participated in the Share a Million Stories campaign, where we kept track of the number of stories read in each class before updating our school Share-O-Meter! At the end of each week we would update our on-line profile to help build on the whole world Share-O-Meter. On World Book Day itself, we held a bedtime stories event with children from P1 to P7. They got to listen to a range of stories (including Gaelic tales) whilst enjoying a hot chocolate in their pyjamas!

Literacy Week

We also had a Literacy themed week where the whole school took part in DEAR time every day. This stands for Drop Everything and Read…something the children really loved getting involved in. The pupils in the literacy Committee held a brilliant assembly to kick this week off, helping to explain the importance of reading and the fun and magic it offers. Literacy Week also saw the pupils take part in the Extreme Reading Challenge. Classes and individual pupils all posted pictures of themselves reading in some funny, creative and bizarre places! These ranged from in a shopping trolley, in Mrs Hunter’s office and “chilling with a book” on top of a fridge!

Literacy Committee on Twitter

Our Twitter page has really grown this year through children reading and sharing their creative stories. These are posted each Friday as a weekly bedtime story to welcome the weekend. In addition, exciting learning activities involving reading in class, in the community and at home, have been shared via the Literacy Committee twitter alongside the hashtag #WhinhillReads. This lets everyone see the fun we are having through literacy learning and can even help inspire others to pick up a book!

Follow us on Twitter: @WhinhillC

 

Community Work

We have helped share our love of reading in the community in many ways. At the beginning of the year, many pupils got involved in the “Look for a Book” campaign. This fun initiative saw pupils and classes hide a favourite book somewhere in the community for another child to find and enjoy before hiding it again elsewhere. Another favourite literacy event in the community was visiting Merino Court Care Home in December. Classes took various Christmas stories to read to the residents and this was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone involved.

Author Visits

At Whinhill, we love an author visit, we have welcomed Lindsay Littleson, author of The Titanic Detective Agency. This involved pupils from P4-7 and inspired many of them to seek out her books and even have a go of writing themselves. After receiving a grant from the Scottish Book Trust, we were able to invite a second author to speak to our pupils. This time, we welcomed AH Proctor, creator of the Thumble Tumble series. These books are filled with magic, folklore and are based on the Scottish island of Arran, engaging all our pupils instantly! She worked with P4-7 in a fantastically interactive session where they created their own potion and sampled some magic jellybeans! The pupils also had the opportunity to purchase signed books from the author and the school received a copy of each of her books for the library.

Book Swap Boxes

Our book swap boxes are still up and running for P1-3, P4-5 and P6-7 and pupils can manage these independently, swapping books for their own leisure and enjoyment. The literacy committee members keep these neat and tidy as well as updating the sign in/out sheets for their peers to make the most out of them.