Active Literacy in St Margaret’s Primary School and Nursery Class

1. Active Literacy in St Margaret’s Primary School and Nursery Class

2. What is meant by literacy? Within Curriculum for Excellence literacy is defined as: the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language, and the range of texts, which society values and finds useful. 21st Century Literacy Skills

3. Why use Active Literacy? The Active Literacy Programme aims to enable young people to have greater literacy success with no child being left behind.

4. Why use Active Literacy? Evaluation of Impact on Learning & Teaching and Attainment The average reading age of children in the Active Literacy group was 7 months higher than the average reading age of the control group.

5. Features of Active Literacy • Research based • A clear progression from Nursery to S1 • All areas of literacy interlinked – talking and listening, spelling and phonics, reading and writing • Learning inside the classroom and beyond • Children supporting and challenging each other (Reciprocal Teaching) • Children actively engaged in their learning

6. Active Literacy Information

7. Phonics and spelling Daily practice Class, group, paired and individual work Phonics sounds e.g. a, t, ch, ee, igh, ow. Spelling common words e.g. at, the, every, where, because Regular assessment Active learning Clear progression

8. Stage 1-3 Say Make/Break Blend Read Write

9. Elkonin Boxes One phoneme (sound) in each box

10. Phoneme Story Children play ‘Text Detectives’ and search for the focus phoneme in their story or other texts.

11. Stages 4 – 5 - Diacritical Marking The diacritical marking code records: single phonemes joined phonemes split phonemes

12. Stages 6 and 7 – S1 and beyond • Strategy Spelling • Building vocabulary • Affixes • Secondary School subject words • Murmur • Separate • February • Can you devise strategies for these?

13. Children devise own strategies

14. Another Strategy

15. Visual Clues

16. More Strategies

17. Reading Daily reading experiences Class, group, paired and individual work Clear strategies Reading a variety of texts for a variety of purposes Learning to love texts

18. What is meant by ‘texts’? Within Curriculum for Excellence: a text is the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated.

19. Reading Skills for Life • Prior knowledge • Metalinguistics • Visualisation • Inference • Main ideas • Summarising/ paraphrasing

20. Reading to Write

21. Writing Class, group, paired and individual work Daily writing experiences Writing in a variety of contexts Writing for a variety of purposes

22. Writing • Stage One – Preparing to write– the Big Conversation • Stage Two – The writing process • Stage Three – Working together to evaluate, improve and identify next steps • Stage Four – Re-drafting, publishing and celebrating success

23. Writing Genres • Not just about narrative • Instructions/ procedures • Explanation • Information • Persuasion • Recounts • Discussion/ debate/ argue • When do we use these in real life?

24. What Can I Do to Help My Child? • Talking to your child about their experiences e.g. a trip to the shops • Reading to your child • Reading a range of ‘texts’ – a trip to the local library • Help with reading recipes/ t.v. guides/ newspapers/ magazines • Have fun with spellings (websites) • Crosswords/ wordsearches/ Hangman/ Scrabble • Help writing at home – shopping lists etc

25. Thank you! • Please take a parent information leaflet and feel free to ask any questions.

26. A huge thanks to... • Chloe Ashe • Mia Wallace • Lewis Hudson • Alfie Jenkins • Ellie Palmer • Eve Balloch • Shanna Gallie • Brodie Findlay • Holly Keeble • Danielle Romanis • Adrienne McIntyre • Elizabeth Hamilton • Rory Massie • Kai Grandison • Poppy Duncan • Charlotte Grey • Abbie Auchincloss • Mairi Cifelli