KS1/2 English - Literacy and Enjoyment 1

How can you get access to this resource outside the UK ?

Its really great that this approach to literacy is being encouraged. As I worked with a Head Teacher in 2004 -05, who was using this approach, to its fullest potential. Sadly at that time, some staff and parents were unaware of the benefits that could be drawn from the sessions. Which hindered her great work.
However against the odds, the children, like the children in this video were producing some fantastic work and had a greater understanding of the texts we were using.

As a student teacher about to start my first teaching practice may I say how inspiring the video was, it has certainly confirmed many of my thoughts on literacy and given me some new ideas, thank you very much.

JV
What a powerful example of how we can enthuse all children into becoming discerning readers, through introducing them, from an early age, to memorable, well illustrated texts, which deal with themes with which they can readily identify.
The enjoyment and confidence gained from getting to know books such as these books so intimately, forms a solid foundation on which they can build, throughout their primary school years and beyond.

I would definitely recommend this programme to all KS1 teachers.

Brilliant teaching! I wish I could work with such an enthusiastic teacher in my school. The children were really focussed and I did not spot any misbehaviour as they were really engrossed in their listening.

It was refreshing to see drama being used before writing which is something I am trying to encourage in my school. It was great to see the children full of ideas for writing. I am certain enjoyment of literacy in both reading and writing is what we should be concentrating on and not the scores in the SAT tests!

I would hope that what is being shown in the video is what is happening in classrooms all over the country. This is the one way we can encourage children, not only to enjoy the story as it really is, but to imagine and write about different aspects of the story and make up their own versions. Children can become really excited about their work and love writing their own books and making illustrations too. The teacher too plays a big part by his/her enthusiasm and this showed in the video clip.

As a grumpy old woman I have to say that there is nothing new under the sun, and if teachers have not been using this approach to reading then I despair!
As regards media claims re standards of reading, clearly they do not distinguish between tests of word recognition and tests of comprehension which demand not just information retrieval but inference and deduction. Results from the latter type of test have many, many variables which affect results; child's cognitive ability (yes I know intelligence is a dirty word and all children are supposed to be average these days - what rubbish!); parental interaction and support; whether English is their first language; whether the reading subject matter is of interest; how motivated - or not - the child is to do well in the test; speed of reading and/or writing etc., etc.
Frankly, if there is a need for this type of programme, it might be more useful to do a series of programmes each featuring a worthwhile book, with a quick romp through ideas for, and ways of using the book, with more detailed notes available to send for. In particular, KS2 teachers who think they still have to serve up unrelated gobbits of text each day might benefit from ideas for novels!

Not sure if I would use for training as I am sure most teachers will believe this is what they are doing and their is nothing new!

Good to see the words literacy and enjoyment together. Sometimes we rush through a variety of text whereas this showed more quality using the Grace books and brilliant cross curricular links. It was good to do the talk and then writing but still not having finished the book. Often we do plenty of talk and model writing but they have usually heard all the book. The children all seemed eager to write and had loads of "hooks" given to them which was a great help.