Practices

Increasing Literacy Skills
Comenius Regio Partnership
Institutions involved:
Partner Regio 1
Coordinator organisation: Ringsaker municipality
Partner organisations: Nes primary school
NO - Norway Fagerlund primary school
Library Service
Partner Regio 2
Coordinator organisation: South Lanarkshire Council
Partner organisations: Crawforddyke Primary/Nursery
UK – United Kingdom Lanark Primary/Nursery
Carluke High
Coulter/Lamington Primaries
Library Service
Key words: Libraries, Literacy strategies
Thematic Field: Literacy
Description:
In many regions there is little awareness and cooperation between the main public
libraries on the one hand and schools and school authorities on the other hand. This
partnership addressed this issue by exchanging experiences and looking at ways to
include the public libraries in literacy education and provide library staff with
competences and motivation to turn the libraries into literacy education resource
centres, cooperating actively with schools and the school authority to improve
literacy education. In that sense, the partner regions worked to improve their
approaches to and methodologies in literacy education.
By exchanging experiences and results from the use of different literacy models and
additional literacy aid tools such as ICT-programmes in the two partner regions, the
partners gained better knowledge of models and tools, making the strategic decisions
for school authorities easier and contributing to removing teachers' barriers against
using new models and tools in literacy education. The project provided new insights
into the effects of different pedagogical literacy and early intervention models
and explored ways to involve public libraries more actively, efficiently and
coherently as pedagogical tools in literacy education
The project has had considerable impact at all levels. Teachers from both regions
report that they have benefited from the exchange of experiences. Similarly, the
libraries have exchanged ideas they want to implement in their practice, both within
schools and in the public libraries. The project has brought the participating schools
and the libraries within each region closer together, and other schools in both
countries have also benefited from the work. As a result of this project, links to the
public libraries were introduced in the partner regions' local strategies to improve
literacy education in the early years of school.
Awards
National award in Scotland
Duration:
2009-2011
Webpage:
http://ils-norwayandscotland.wikispaces.com/
http://www.europeansharedtreasure.eu/detail.php?id_project_base=2009-1-NO1-
COM13-00847
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