Talking Photo Album Activity Book

This Activity Book explains how to produce talking stories, diaries, non-fiction texts and scrap-books to support any area of the curriculum. It also illustrates how to produce high quality sound-enabled information booklets to share with the whole school community. 

The portability of Talking Photo Albums makes them perfect for use in out-of-hours clubs and for home-based learning. They are also suitable for home-school communication and have been successfully used to enable parents/carers to stay in contact with their family when they are away from home for long periods of time. 

As an Assessment for Learning (AfL) tool, the albums can be used formatively, for example to show progression in a child's oral development over time, as well as providing opportunity for practitioners and/or peers to leave oral feedback for each other. They can also be used summatively to showcase children's narrated, written and graphical work. 

Size: A4
No. of Pages: 15
No. of Activities: 12 

The benefits of using Talking Photo Albums 

Talking Photo Albums provide opportunities for multi-modal teaching and learning. The technology uses the metaphor of a 'book' to provide a framework for linking visual material, writing, music and sound effects, audio 'narrative' and kinaesthetic learning. The emphasis on speaking and listening is supportive for all children, including those learning English as an additional language (EAL) or those with Special Educational Needs (SEN). The albums also have significant resonance for pupils learning languages other than English. 

The inextricable link between thinking, talking and writing can sometimes be overlooked in classroom situations. Being able to record ad-hoc thoughts or more formal oral contributions can be especially helpful for some learners as they prepare for presentations or academic writing. Talking photo albums have a significant role to play in facilitating 'talk for writing' approaches within the curriculum. 

Whilst perfect for individual projects, the albums are also well-suited for collaborative learning where groups of individuals work together to produce a finished product. The albums encourage the increasingly popular notion of 'content curation', where relevant media is collated into a presentational format that meets the needs of a specific audience. There is opportunity here for learners to produce content for their peers, younger children or even older members of their family or the wider school community.

Age: 2 years +