Active Literacy in Primary 1

1. Active Literacy in Primary 1 August 2015 Miss Black & Mrs Polatajko

2. Primary 1 Stirling Miss Black – Guided Reading and Taught Writing Primary 1 Edinburgh Mrs Polatajko – Spelling, Phonics, Numeracy & Maths and Homework

3. A Curriculum for Excellence and Active Literacy North Lanarkshire Literacy Base has developed a very comprehensive and successful ‘Active Literacy’ pack for schools in line with ‘A Curriculum for Excellence’. Recent research indicates improved results when literacy is taught in meaningful contexts and using an ‘active’ approach.

4. What is Active Literacy? An Active Literacy week will include; • Daily spelling sessions • Daily phonics sessions • 2 guided reading sessions • 1 taught writing session • Many independent reading, writing, talking and listening tasks

5. Spelling • Each day will include a spelling session. • Children learn 3 new words each week. • Teacher models word learning strategies. • Pupils practise reading, writing and checking with a partner each day. • Words are placed into dictated sentences as part of weekly assessments.

8. Phonics • Teachers and pupils use magnetic boards and letters to learn new sounds. • Letters are added to the magnetic board as each sound is taught. • Children are taught the correct letter size and formation and are given the opportunity to create this letter in a variety of ways. • Pupils make words with their new sounds right away. • Pupils say, make/break, blend, read and write words using new sounds. • Children work individually, in pairs and small groups.

9. Selection of photos Phonics Session

12. Guided Reading • Each reading group will read two books per week. • Guided reading sessions with the teacher. • Pupils read whole book several times; with teacher, independently, with a partner and at home. • Taught session includes a walk-through of text, a look at tricky words, reading aloud alone and with a partner and a focussed look at a particular aspect of the text – very intensive. • Pupils then complete follow-up tasks which assess comprehension and encourage interaction with text. • As part of the reading programme the children will cover a number of Traditional Tales throughout the year, e.g. “The Three Little Pigs.” The children will read, discuss and re-enact the story over a 3 week period.

14. How to Read with your Child Look at the front and back cover, talk about the title, author, illustrator and blurb. Look at the pictures first and ask your child to tell you what is happening in them – cover the words if you have to. Ask your child to read the story to you (word attack). Discuss the book with your child using open questions, e.g. Who is the main character in the book? How do you think she is feeling? What do you think mum might have said? Why did he do that? What do you think happened next?

16. Getting Stuck! It is important pupils experience ‘getting stuck’ at tricky words in order to learn how to overcome this. You can help by reminding them of the strategies they already have to ‘attack’ words. * look at the picture for clues * sound out the word * look for chunks of the word you might know * read the sentence again – what would make sense? * read past the word – what would make sense?

18. Taught Writing Lesson • Pupils still need to be taughthow to write. • One taught writing lesson per week related to a meaningful context created within the classroom. • The weekly writing titles could be related to the Interdisciplinary Topic, current events in the classroom/school/ wider community, and/or Traditional Tales. • This will ensure that the children have some prior knowledge of the subject and the writing process can be more meaningful. • Taught writing lessons will involve a variety of writing genres, e.g. narrative stories, letters, instructions. • Initially, the writing process will involve scribing and overwriting where an adult will write the story given orally by the children. When the children are ready they will write independently with less adult guidance required.

20. Numeracy & Maths We implement the North Lanarkshire Council Maths Pathway Programme. In line with the Curriculum For Excellence this involves three levels: Early, First and Second. P1 will be working on the Early Level. Similar to the Literacy programme, this employs an active approach which will allow the children to explore numeracy and maths concepts using a variety of activities and resources, which will be reflected in the chosen Homework tasks.

22. Homework • Pupils in P1 should spend no longer than 15 minutes on Homework. • Your child should read his/her reading book with you each night. Please ensure that the reading book is brought to school daily. • On Monday a Homework pack will be issued which contains: • a Homework Jotter. • a 4 weekly programme of activities relating to spelling, phonemes and maths as well as mentioning the current Interdisciplinary Topic and any relevant events taking place in the classroom. • With the exception of holidays, this Homework jotter will be issued each Monday for your child to complete: • 1 spelling activity, • 1 phoneme activity, • 1 maths activity, • The jotter will be collected on Friday for marking. • P.E times will also be included.

23. Homework Activities You will now have the opportunity to visit the P1 bays to view a variety of activities.

24. Evaluation We should like to thank you for attending this evening and hope that you have found this beneficial in supporting your child with the Homework Programme. When you have had the opportunity to sample the activities in the bays, it would be greatly appreciated if you could complete an evaluation sheet and leave this with the relevant teacher.

25. Thank you Throughout the year should you have any queries regarding the homework, please do not hesitate to ask. We will be happy to further discuss this.