The Green, Cbs Secondary School

THE GREEN, CBS SECONDARY SCHOOL

Literacy and Numeracy Initiative – Information for parents

The roll-out of the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in The Green, CBS Secondary School, as in all schools involves evaluating the 1st and 2nd year students’ progress in these areas and implementing strategies to improve these skills. Our brand new library will be a key driving force behind the implementation of this strategy within The Green. The library already holds weekly events such as book treasure hunts, word of the week campaign, literary/numeracy based table quizzes. With up to 30-40 students visiting the library every lunch, and with the amount of books borrowed over a seven month period reaching 1380, it’s safe to say the library has made a substantial impact among the students of The Green. The library opened in November 2013 with 900 books in total. Today, it holds over an impressive 2,500!

We prepared for the implementation of phase 1 of the literacy strategy in Sept 2014, by testing the effectiveness of a Key Word Journal in the 1st and 2nd year classes this year. All junior students are expected to use a vocabulary Booklet throughout the three year cycle. All students will be expected to convert their ‘fraction’ test results into a percentage (see p.44 of student journals).

The promotion of chess is another initiative to encourage an increase in ‘problem solving’ and ‘understanding’, and it’s done so with a tournament being held in the library every Tuesday. Chess has long been regarded as a game that can have beneficial effects on learning and development, especially when it’s played from a young age. The students are open to developing analytical, synthetic and decision-making skills, which they can transfer to real life. It is also claimed that chess can boost numeracy levels with knock-on benefits across other subjects thus reiterating the strong literacy/numeracy drive taken place within The Green.

In between these tournaments, chess lessons are held with two very experienced mentors providing guidance and direction to those who want to learn. All in all, it provides the students with an educational yet fun way to spend their lunch times, with the tournament allowing them to bring out their competitive side in a relaxed environment (http://www.okschess.org/starting/benefits/ and http://www.sparkchess.com/). Our literacy drive will also include initiatives such as book clubs, book review and short story competitions, and an online blog/wiki space for students to publish their book reviews.

What can you do?

While we at The Green CSB will endeavour to constantly develop and implement strategies to improve the literacy and numeracy of our students, it would be of great benefit to every student if parents developed and implemented some of their own strategies to help to nurture literacy and numeracy skills in their young people. While many parents already encourage their children to read and write for pleasure and help their child to engage with numeracy in everyday life, some parents may benefit from guidance as to how an interest in reading and numbers could be stimulated in their child in the home.

To promote LITERACY in the home, it is suggested that you might:

·  Provide a ‘text-rich’ environment at home. Display books in the home and promote newspaper and magazine reading. Leave interesting books in various rooms around the house. Provide bookcases in your child’s bedroom so they can store and display their own books. Perhaps you may consider purchasing broadsheet newspapers rather than tabloid papers because broadsheet newspapers have more in-depth analysis of news and current affairs and are generally written in a more formal style of language with a higher readability level.

·  When out and about with your child, visit bookshops and browse the different sections. Tell your child to find an age appropriate book of interest to them and purchase that book if it is affordable. Follow up on this purchase by discussing the book as your child is reading it. This parental interest helps to positively reinforce literacy for your child.

·  When giving your child presents for birthdays and Christmas, you might include book tokens as part (or all) of the gift. You might follow up by bringing them to a bookshop to purchase books with the tokens, and then positively reinforce by discussing the book with your child as they read.

·  Enquire as to your child’s interests and hobbies and provide stimulating literature on their area of interest. Most people will read about topics in which they have an active involvement.

·  Encourage your child to make regular visits to the new school library. Due to our school librarians vital experience in the field, coupled a vast amount of research along with students’ feedback, the library is stocked with the most popular, new released books. Great effort has been placed into stocking each genre to our best potential so your son is guaranteed to find something he will enjoy.

·  Encourage your child to read material other than their homework at least once a day. Many young people like to read for a while in bed before they go to sleep. Helping your child to develop such a ritual would make a significant difference to their literacy in later life.

·  Try to take an interest in reading yourself. You are an educational role model for your children so if they see you reading, they may well develop an interest themselves. If you have friends or extended family who read, ask them to take an interest in your child’s reading by swapping and discussing books with them.

·  Involve your child in literacy activities such as crosswords and word searches in the newspapers. Play word games with them such as Scrabble, bananagrams, etc.

·  Encourage your child to write for pleasure and to enter into competitions for creative writing. Encourage them to write letters to newspapers to express their views publicly, or to send their writings into magazines and literary publications. http://www.schooldays.ie/articles-teacher/school-competitions, http://www.writerscentre.ie/html/resources/competitions.html, http://www.poetryireland.ie/whats-on/competitions.php, http://creativewriting.ie/category/competitions-and-events/ and http://www.writing.ie/category/writing-comps/.

·  Give your child the opportunity to see an age appropriate play performed live by professional actors. This will help the child to become more familiar with the process of the writing, staging and performance of plays which are an essential part of the Junior and Leaving Certificate English courses. It should also reinforce the idea that literature is to be enjoyed in many different contexts and is not just school-based. Tralee is home to Ireland's National Folk Theatre, Siamsa Tire, with numerous productions being held throughout the school year. http://www.siamsatire.com/

·  Discuss films and media with your child in terms of type/genre, plot, acting, characters, structure, function etc. This helps to develop your child’s faculty of critical thinking, which is also examined as part of Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations.

·  Have a dictionary and thesaurus in the home and encourage your child to use them to find the meaning and spellings of words that come up in books and conversation. The Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford English Thesaurus are considered the most comprehensive and are available in all good bookshops. This practice will help to develop your child’s vocabulary and spelling. (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/)

·  Try to identify books that are appropriate to your child’s comfort with reading and to your child’s emotional development. To find reviews of books, use sites such as:

(www.lovereading4kids.co.uk) and (www.childrensbooksireland.ie)

Useful Literacy Websites:

·  http://www.learner.org/interactives/story/cinderella.html Fantastic site allowing the user to explore every aspect of a story in a clear and simplified way, e.g. setting, plot, characters, conflict etc.

·  http://www.sadlier-oxford.com/phonics/grade_k_1/high_fre/hifreq1.htm This is a great test for students on their knowledge of high frequency words. It’s a quick, straight-forward activity with encouraging messages along the way.

·  http://www.telescopictext.com/.This site provides a simple sentence. By clicking on each word you watch an amazing story unfold which demonstrates how elaborate one can get it with correct use of literacy and vocab. Brilliant eye opener.

·  http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/clubhouse/index_pre.html This site allows the user to test his grammar while building different, personalised club-houses through the progression of correct answers. This is a fun way to learn without even realising you’re doing so.

·  http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/literacy/joining_words/play/. This is a fun activity to help and test students ability to join words. The site is great for essay writing.

·  http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/basketball/index.html This is a short basketball game testing out the user’s ability to learn the difference between nouns, proper nouns and not nouns at all. Great help to improve grammar.

·  http://freerice.com/#/english-vocabulary/2752. This is site tests user’s meanings of words. Get the answers right and 10 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Program.

·  http://www.grammaropolis.com/. This a fantastic site where students and parents can benefit alike. Explore the meaning of adjectives, nouns and verbs, and be tested by dragging the words into the correct containers. This is a great, overall descriptive site with a very attractive and learner friendly interface.

To promote NUMERACY in the home it is suggested that you might:

·  Give your child an input into some of the ‘number-based’ decisions made at home. Involve them in costing a home improvement project or keeping a simple budget sheet for pocket money, grocery shopping, birthday party, etc.

·  Encourage your child to keep a timetable for school, homework, other activities so that they can learn good time-keeping skills. Even a simple task like monitoring how long homework takes every night (as we do in our homework policy) can make them more aware of time and can provide useful feedback to the school regarding the amount of homework being assigned.

·  When out and about with your child, wear your ‘mathseyes’ http://www.haveyougotmathseyes.com). Look out for examples of numeracy in the work around you. This parental interest helps to positively reinforce numeracy as an everyday activity for your child.

·  When giving your child presents for birthdays and Christmas, you might include number and shape puzzles as part of the gift.

·  Use your child’s natural interests and hobbies to raise awareness of numeracy e.g. sports (measuring pitch size, league tables, keeping score, etc.)

·  Discuss attitudes to numeracy with your child. Evidence suggests that parents attitude to numeracy can have a real influence on their children. Avoid statements like ‘I was no good at maths in school.’ Students need to have an I’ll give it my best shot’ attitude in the maths classroom and in all numeracy situations.

·  Involve your child in numeracy related activities such as Sudoku, Number puzzles, checking their change, recognising shapes, measuring weight/waist before shopping for clothes etc.

·  Have a calculator in the home and encourage your child to use it to work out every day numeracy questions such as ‘Which item is better value?’ This practice will help to develop your child’s ability to see numeracy as an essential everyday skill. The process of guess (estimate an answer), press (use the calculator to get and exact answer) and check (that your answer makes sense) should be something that our students are familiar with from maths classes.

Useful Numeracy Websites:

·  http://mathscircles.ie Useful problem solving exercises.

·  http://nrich.maths.org/frontpage NRICH is a team of qualified teachers who are also practitioners in RICH mathematical thinking.

·  http://www.haveyougotmathseyes.com/Real life applications of mathematics

·  http://seandelaney.com/2011/11/15/how-parents-can-help-their-child-learn-maths/#more-412Ideas from Dr. Sean Delaney on how parents can best help their children with their mathematics

·  http://www.arcademicskillbuilders.com Online educational video games

·  http://worksheets.theteachercorner.net Word puzzles e.g. Why is a manhole cover round?

·  http://ie.ixl.com IXL is aligned to the Irish national curriculum.

·  http://www.mangahigh.com/en_gb/gamesShort versions of free Maths games. Students can play full length versions for free if you create a school account and issue them with logins.

·  http://nlvm.usu.edu Resources for various strands available. Scroll down to grades 9-12 for second level resources.

·  http://www.thatquiz.org/ Very good quizzes and tests against the clock

·  http://www.mathplayground.com/geoboard.html Interactive geoboard

·  http://www.theteachercorner.net/ A collection of educational worksheets, lesson plans, activities and resources for teachers and parents

·  http://www.cngl.ie/ailo/ Puzzles in language, logic and linguistics

·  http://www.jcspliteracy.ie/num_jcsp_resources.php Access to JCSP numeracy resources

·  http://www.mathsisfun.com/Puzzles , games and worksheets

·  http://www.tes.co.uk/ Useful resources for all subjects

·  http://mrbartonmaths.com/ Maths resources for teachers, parents and student

·  http://www.studystack.com/ Mathematical literacy tool

·  http://amathsdictionaryforkids.com/dictionary.html An animated dictionary

Useful Apps:

·  Kings of Maths: Very good for mental arithmetic

·  Maths Quiz Gameshow: Quizzes on various maths topics

·  Digiwhiz: Very good for number fluency

·  5 Dice: Exercises combining five numbers and operations to reach a target number

·  Wolfram Algebra-Course Assistant: Multi-representational approach to algebra

·  Maths Bingo: Good for basic arithmetic

·  Algebra Touch: Demonstration of basic rules of addition/subtraction

·  Fraction Basic: Lessons based on the different aspects of fractions

·  Tangrams: app for puzzles and shape

·  NumbersGame: An app which combines foreign languages and the numbers 1-10

·  Math Gr5: topics such as number and operations, fractions and measuring etc are included Wolfram Pre-Algebra Course Assistant: Multi-representational approach to algebra

·  Conundra Math: Exercises combining three numbers and operations to reach a target number

Useful Twitter Feeds for CPD and resources:

·  @ddmeyer-problems

·  @centreofmath-general resources

·  @mrbartonmaths-resources

·  @republicofmath-resources and articles

·  @Maths_Master-resources

Literacy and numeracy co-ordinator: Des Healy

Librarian: Laura Mahoney

1

Literary content adapted from Lucan Community College Literacy and Numeracy Initiative – with thanks.