Literacy Week in Primary
The Literacy and Culture Week is one of the significant events held in the Primary School, starting several years ago. The goals of this event are to promote a love of reading, to highlight a variety of fun and engaging ways to approach language teaching and learning, and to educate the parent community about the value of reading with children at home. It also aligns with the first of our school wide goals: to support students to develop their competencies in XLIS’ language of instruction.
As is tradition, the day began with Pajama Day. The reason for this is because for most of us, our first introduction to books and stories began when we were very little, as a bedtime story. These memories can bring back the feelings of comfort, safety and spending quality time with loved ones while reading together. The students came to school dressed in a wide variety of pajama styles, some with their favourite characters, others just to be warm and cozy. It was evident that this relaxing and fun kick-off to literacy week was just what everyone needed after our last online period.
For the next two days, a variety of different activities happened throughout the school, organized by the homeroom classes or grade groups. Some examples of activities were buddy reading between upper primary and lower primary or early years classes, guest readers such as parents or teachers, book reviews, and story dramatizations.
The day that everyone looks forward to the most, however, is “Book Character Day”. It is always so much fun to see the creativity of the students and the kinds of characters that they relate to. The morning began with the Book Character Parade by our smallest participants, the ECEA, ECEB and P1 classes. They showed their amazing costumes to older classes and staff members who were lining the hallways. In the upper primary grades, there were many participants with costumes from a wide range of books. There was no shortage of characters from the Harry Potter series, and I am sure this will continue to be a favourite for many years to come.
To wrap up the week, the Primary School had an assembly where the Mandarin department had students recite well-known poems in Mandarin and English. It was a beautiful way to mark the end of our fun-filled, focus on literacy week. Of course, it does not stop here. As educators, we are always seeking fun and engaging ways to promote literacy in our school and hope that our parents will do the same at home! Stories have so many adventures waiting for you!
Literacy Week in Secondary
This year was the first time the Secondary teachers and students participated in Literacy week at XLIS. We aimed to create awareness about Literacy across the curriculum. When people talk of Literacy, the one idea that comes to mind is ‘Reading’. However, Literacy is more than just reading a book – this is what we aimed to show the students during that week. Literacy was addressed in different subjects, and hopefully, students understood the nuances of Literacy in all their subjects.
We wanted to create awareness about Literacy in Sciences. To this end, the Science Department organised a whole school writing task to make the students understand that Literacy in Sciences is not about writing lab reports. However, it also connects what is learned in class to real-life situations.
Literacy in Design and Arts: Students developed their Literacy in the Arts by interpreting and creating new types of Arts and Design. The activities aimed to create an understanding of the aesthetic components of art.
Math Department conducted sessions where students completed activities on the application of Math solutions to real-life situations. In the MYP, this is called ‘exploration’.
Language Departments: Students created poems and developed their skills in language to engage more deeply in the language style and purpose.
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Authors:
Jaimala Quinlan (Secondary Principal)
Marly Song (Primary Principal)
