Longman Book Project: Fiction 1: Software: Acorn Archimedes Software

Designed to fit the National Curriculum, the English 5-14 Guidelines in Scotland and the Northern Ireland Guidelines for English, this is part of the "Longman Book Project". The project aims to enable teachers throughout the primary school to teach: language; fiction; and non-fiction. The project also offers practical guidance and in-built record keeping and assessment. It is carefully structured, enabling all teachers throughout the primary school to teach reading and language with success and understanding. The "Longman Book Project" covers three main areas: fiction and language are the first two, and these are divided into four stages: 4-7 years; 7-9 years; 9-10 years; and 10-12 years. The titles within the stages in fiction are: reading aloud, read on; new reader; independent reader; literature and culture - respectively. The respective language topics are: phonetics, handwriting and spelling; handwriting, spelling and grammer; presentation, spelling and grammer; and presentation, spelling and grammer. The final area covered is non-fiction, which is organized into two stages: 4-9 years - introducing reading for information; and 7-12 years - developing reading for information.
The "Fiction" material offers: a wide range of fiction genres structured and organized to support children's early reading development; large format books for reading aloud as well as books for the younger children to read for themselves; and myths and legends for older children. The "Language" material is covered in four packs. The "Language" 1 material is a structured course in phonics, handwriting and spelling that aims to link the teaching of phonics for initial reading to basic handwriting skills, and later to the teaching of spelling; and it has its own story-context and teaches through games, songs, puppetry and other fun activities. In "Language" 2, 3 and 4, for the middle and upper primary years, the project offers three packs providing a language scheme covering: handwriting, spelling, grammar, presentation, punctuation and assessment. Finally, the "Non-fiction" material offers: useful and informative texts initiating or supplementing topic work; large format starter books for the early years; and a range of different types of information books such as encyclopaedia, atlas, cookbook.
Teaching support including full colour pupil's books, workbooks, copymasters, cassettes, software, posters and assessment materials are also offered as part of the package. This software provides a comprehensive suite of screens covering many Fiction 1 titles, using the characters and scenarios made familiar in the Longman Book Project Read Aloud and Read On books.