As part of Presentation Castleisland’s literacy initiative Literacy Week was celebrated from 4th – 8th March. Several events were organised to promote proficiency in reading and writing within the school.
By: Joan Mc Elligott and Noreen O’Shea
Several events were organised to promote proficiency in reading and writing within the school.
Visiting Author
Presenting and public speaking skills are as important as reading, writing and maths, but many children are nervous at the prospect of speaking or presenting in front of their classmates or teacher. Award winning presenter and children’s author, Anthony Garvey, completed a two and a half hour workshop with our first and second year students. Students learned to be articulate, eloquent and confident, in order to become effective public communicators and team workers in future years.
D.E.A.R.
Drop Everything And Read strategy is a fun approach to reading, whereby all students and teachers are asked to drop everything they are doing at a given moment and read for twenty minutes.
Library Visits
According to Albert Einstein, ‘The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.’ With this in mind, students from first year, second year and third year were taken on a visit to the local library during Literacy Week. They had an opportunity to browse through the library at leisure and each student was encouraged to borrow a book.
Book Swap Initiative
Following the popularity of last year’s book swap initiative, first and second year students were again encouraged to recommend and to swap books which they had read and enjoyed. They had to use their persuasive skills to convince their peers that a particular book was worth reading. There was a great atmosphere around this activity.
World Book Day – Dress up as your Favourite Character
To celebrate World Book Day, the whole school dressed up as a character from a book that they had read. We had some fun interviews with the characters. As difficult as it was to choose a winner, five winning costumes were chosen and those students were awarded book tokens.
International Women’s Day 2019
To mark International Women’s Day we decided to incorporate it into Literacy Week. Students from each year group gave presentations on women who inspire them, who motivate them, who they admire and hold up as role models.
We were honoured and privileged to have Kathleen O’Sullivan, a former pupil, who is currently studying Journalism and Law at the University of Limerick, chairing this motivational and worth-while activity.
Kathleen gave excellent tips on presenting and shared some of her own experiences with regards to writing, studying and school life with the students.
You can contact The Maine Valley Post on…
Anyone in The Maine Valley Post catchment area who would like to send us news and captioned photographs for inclusion can send them to: jreidy@mainevalleypost.com
Queries about advertising and any other matters regarding The Maine Valley Post can also be sent to that address or just ring: 087 23 59 467.
Please Note: A click on any of our adverts will reveal all you need to know about what our advertisers need to tell you.
Copyright Notice: The images and text which appear on The Maine Valley Post site remain the exclusive property of John Reidy, (unless stated otherwise) and are protected under International Copyright laws. Images or text may not be reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without the written permission of the author, John Reidy, in this instance. Use of any image as the basis for another photographic concept or illustration (digital, artist rendering or alike) is a violation of International Copyright laws. All images are copyrighted by John Reidy 2018.
