To find out more about Story Street and the rest of the Literacy Land programme,
visit www.literacyland.co.uk.

Site Structure

The Story Street website is a reliable, and simple to use resource for the teacher. The site is divided into a homepage, a quick reference teacher's area and the children's pages.

The teachers' area contains the following:

	General notes on using the site
	Summary of NLS Objectives
	Activity Sheets
	Notes on each section
	Stickers
	Outlines of the characters to colour in
	Medium-term planning documents

The children's pages make up the main body of the site and are divided into the following sections:

	An interactive Map Tour of Story Street
	Meet your Story Street friends
	Meet the Authors and Artist
	Story Street School Magazine

How to use storystreet.co.uk

The Story Street site is designed to be used in a variety of ways, ranging from supporting the use of the Story Street in the classroom, a way of accessing free activity sheets, or simply providing a resource for developing ICT skills.

Here are two suggested methods:

Using the site only.
Children will use ICT and Literacy skills to navigate the site and complete the resource sheets. All the information about places, characters and people that children need to complete the resource sheets can be found on the site.

Using the site with the support of the Story Street stories and material from the Literacy Land Genre range.
This allows the children to follow up the events they have seen mentioned on the map, and allows the teacher to model certain forms of writing, where this is thought appropriate.

These notes will suggest how both approaches can be used.

N.B. If you find that the text and images look a little small, you may find that it helps to change the resolution setting of the screen to 800x600, as this is the setting that the site has been designed for.

To do this either:

a) Click here for instructions.

b) Find the school technician and get him/her to do it for you!

Summary of NLS Objectives

The following chart lists the NLS objectives covered by the
activity sheets on this site.

The appropriate activity sheet(s) listed under each Text Point are available free on this website for Longman Registered Users.

To access these sheets...

• First register for FREE with longman.co.uk.
• Click on the link marked download activity sheets,
• In the pop-up box that then appears enter your username (email address) and your Longman password.

>> Download activity sheets

>> Find out more about registering

The Map Tour

	The map encourages children to explore Story Street, noting similarities to, and differences from, their own environment, discussing homes, buildings, recreation etc.
	Clicking on the hyperlinks will bring up pictures of that area of the map. Children new to Story Street can see for the first time, for example, Sam in her room, or the friends playing at White Flag Castle. Children who have read the stories from which the pictures have been taken, may be able to recall the surrounding events, find the books, and reread the stories. Recognising the illustrations and locating them will provide opportunities for less able readers to demonstrate their reading skills.
	There are downloadable resource sheets based on the map, which are linked to the NLS. Please see the matching chart above for the reference.

Meet your Story Street friends

Here children can learn more about the Story Street characters. This helps children become more familiar with them, and consequently give struggling readers more confidence when reading the books. Children can also develop their ideas about characterisation by predicting how the characters will answer the questions in their interviews. The e-mail addresses allow the children to send in their own questions to the characters.

There are downloadable resource sheets based on this section, which tie in with the NLS and are equally relevant for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Please see the matching table above for the links to the NLS.

Registered users
Click here to download accompanying activity sheets

Non-registered users
Click here to register for FREE
Find out more about registering

Meet the Authors and the Artist

Here children can read what the Story Street authors and illustrator say about themselves. The format is simple and accessible, the content lively and memorable. The e-mail addresses allow the children to send their own points of view.

There is a downloadable resource sheet based on the author section, which ties in with the NLS and is equally relevant for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Please see the table above for the links to the NLS.

Registered users
Click here to download accompanying activity sheet

Non-registered users
Click here to register for FREE
Find out more about registering

Story Street School Magazine

These pages have a range of material, in magazine format, 'contributed' by the Story Street characters. Each article reflects the personality of the character already developed in the stories. Sam, for example, whose quest for a pet can be read in 'A Pet for Sam' writes an article for Pets' Corner, and Ben's grandfather who is seen cooking in 'Ben and the Pop Star' contributes a cookery feature. This helps to orientate the young reader and provides useful text level support for guided and individual reading of the Story Street books.

The magazine models many of the forms of writing required by the NLS. There is an account of the school trip, a comic, jokes, contributions from the class teacher, crossword, ads, holiday articles etc. Linked to this is a Readers' Magazine with a similar format where children can write about their own school visits, their pets, favourite recipes etc. and send it to the site.

Reading the magazine, writing for it, noticing the intertextual links between the books and the web material, all provide rich opportunities for discussion about the child's own world and the links that can be made with the world of Story Street. Children can identify with, for example, Sam and Mouse as writers, and use the writing frame in the Readers' Magazine to produce a similar piece of work whilst referring back to the original articles for guidance if necessary. To see work from their own class displayed on the Story Street site could be a strong motivation for more reluctant writers.

There are downloadable resource sheets based on the Story Street School Magazine, which tie in with the NLS and are equally relevant for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Please see the table above for the links to the NLS.

Registered users
Click here to download accompanying activity sheets

Non-registered users
Click here to register for FREE
Find out more about registering


Bulletin Board

This is a space for messages sharing ideas about activities that you have organised alongside the Story Street series.

Changing the screen settings

This site is intended to be viewed at 800 x 600 (as at this resolution the font and images will look reasonably large).

To change the screen resolution to 800 by 600 pixels, follow these instructions:

	Minimize all applications on your screen until you have the 'desk top' in front of you.
	Right-click on the desk-top and select Properties from the menu that appears. Then click on Settings at the top right of the new window which appears.
	Now drag the arrow in the 'desk top area' box until it reads 800 by 600 pixels underneath, click on Test and follow the instructions. If this is successful, click on OK when you return to the Settings window.

Character Outlines

Here are a set of outlines of the Story Street characters for you to print out and give to your pupils to colour in. These may be particularly useful when introducing your class to the books for the first time.

>> Download the outlines PDF

N.B. This file is a PDF and so you will need Acrobat Reader to download it. If you don't already have this installed on your computer, you can download it for free at the Adobe website.

Registration

The activity sheets on this website are only available to registered users of www.longman.co.uk.

Becoming a registered member of www.longman.co.uk gives you access to a range of extra free resources and offers and also entitles you to a monthly e-newsletter updating you on new free materials and other items of interest to you on the Longman websites.

It's absolutely free to register, it only takes a minute and it will give you immediate access to these resources.

To access the activity sheets ...

• First register for FREE with longman.co.uk.
• Click on the link marked download activity sheets,
• In the pop-up box that then appears enter your username (email address) and your Longman password.

Planning Sheets

These medium-term planning sheets will save you time preparing the Literacy Hour using Literacy Land books.

There are individual planning sheets for years one to four, with each document split into terms.

Editable Microsoft Word versions of the documents are provided to allow you to tailor the chart to your particular class and schedule.

PDF versions area also provided. These will give a clearer lay-out to each page.

N.B. To open the PDF files you will need Acrobat Reader. If you don't already have this installed on your computer, you can download it for free at the Adobe website.