Tag

children’s literacy

Celebrating National Share-a-Story Month

By | 4-6 years, 6-8 years, 8+ years, Advice for Parents, Teaching Resources

Happy National Share-a-Story Month! May 1st marks the beginning of a whole month of creating and celebrating stories, in all different ways!

At Discovery Diaries HQ, we’re passionate about this year’s theme: The Planet We Share. While our space missions take us far from home, looking at that small blue dot from beyond our atmosphere both humbles and inspires us. We see how interconnected we are, not just on an intergalactic scale but as members of our world and our communities. Stories help us learn more about that world and the people in it.

Stories can be told in all kinds of ways. Long before the written word, people shared them verbally, through music and by making art. Throughout May, we’ll be celebrating storytelling in all its different forms.

To help us celebrate, we’d like to challenge you to tell one story each week in May using different storytelling methods. Here are five different ways to get you started:

  1. Get your Hemingway on and write a piece of micro-prose, using Visual Verse’s daily visual prompt.
  2. Embrace the gift of the gab like Christian Rogers and host an oral storytelling session. You can do this in-person with your household, or online with your friends (with a parent’s permission if you’re under 16). Your story could be one you’ve made up or one you’ve been told.
  3. Follow in the footsteps of the great bard and dabble in poetry. Writing a Shakespearean sonnet is a particularly satisfying challenge. Following one of our templates will help you keep those rhymes in order.
  4. Songwriting is a fun way to share a story. Musician Will Stoert has created a simple five-step method to help you write a song. You don’t need any knowledge of music to use it, so warm up those vocal chords and have some fun!
  5. Not all stories are told through words. From the time our ancient ancestors painted the walls of caves, visual storytelling has been one of our traditions. Why not make your own space-themed comic strip? There’s no limit to where an intergalactic story can take you!

The Federation of Children’s Book Groups has all kinds of resources you can use to celebrate National Share a Story Month, from downloadable activities to reading lists. Their handy mind-map with help you come up with ideas around this year’s theme.

Don’t forget to let Discovery Diaries HQ know how you’re going with your Share-a-story Challenge! Use #discoverydiaries on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to tell us how you’re spinning tales.

Visual Literacy Reading Curved House Kids

Reading Fast and Slow

By | Blog, Visual Literacy

This is an extract from an article published on The Bookseller Blog, 13 March 2013. 

Last week was one of our favourite days – World Book Day. This annual event is a chance for parents, teachers, kids and readers of all ages to celebrate books and stories – a day to remember the reasons why we read.

Our world is now split between online and offline, the virtual and the real, the physical and the digital. We all know these two realms do not exist independently of each other, which is why being able to read whatever is in front of you (whatever form that takes) is becoming more nuanced and complex. For us, finding a way for books – particularly children’s books – to acknowledge those two worlds seems more important than ever. We need to allow ourselves to be open and flexible to the idea of reading taking more forms than it ever has before – but we also need to ensure children have ways to appreciate the value and transformative power of stories, and the act of reading itself.

Working in the field of visual literacy we know that digital media has transformed the volume of information presented to us on a day-to-day basis, particularly when it comes to images and messages. We see them everywhere and we often find ourselves wondering which bits to recognise and acknowledge, and which bits to stop and dwell upon, to reflect and comprehend and engage and build upon the ideas we are being shown. Stories are perfect for this – allowing us to spend time getting to grips with a narrative, with characters, giving our brains the opportunity to concentrate and focus. They train us to remember how to do something beyond an immediate reaction to stimuli.

To read the full article visit The Bookseller Blog…