The children in Ms. Murphy’s 6th class at Scoil Ghobnatan recently participated in the Write-a-Book Project. This involved drafting, writing, editing, illustrating and binding their own original stories and presenting them in book form. The project focuses on language development and the writing process, and is seen as an integral element of the revised primary school English curriculum.

The books created were both factual and fictional, encompassing a variety of different topics. Factual books included geographical books based on Lithuania and Dublin. Books based on Survival Tactics and Soccer also made for interesting reading. The fictional stories created were also extremely imaginative, with characters and plots developed using Story Maps and plans.

The 6th class students had the advantage of engaging in ‘Literacy Lift Off’ from the junior cycle right up to senior cycle at Scoil Ghobnatan. This intervention has given the students the opportunity to read books at their own level of competency and gradually lift the complexity of what they can do in both reading and writing.

The project, completed over a 5 week period, has been a wonderful opportunity for the 6th class students to get involved in active learning and develop literacy skills. Certificates were presented to the students in Mallow Library last Thursday, 3rd March. Some children availed of the opportunity to read excerpts from their books to parents and classmates on the day. The books are now on display at Mallow Library.