Every year, on Valentine’s Day, the English Department joins with the IRC in a little bit of silliness that actually becomes a very successful time of reading for enjoyment. We have been doing this with Year 8 or 9 English classes for six years. Even students who do not normally read for pleasure take part enthusiastically and have an opportunity to experience many genres especially selected for their age group.
Category Archives: Books and Reading
Neil Gaiman lecture on “reading, libraries and daydreaming”
The Guardian recently published a lecture by Neil Gaiman entitled Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming
The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that they enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read them.
The whole lecture is worth reading but this quote emphasises what I discuss with secondary students constantly as I try to entice them to read for pleasure.
And the second thing fiction does is to build empathy. When you watch TV or see a film, you are looking at things happening to other people. Prose fiction is something you build up from 26 letters and a handful of punctuation marks, and you, and you alone, using your imagination, create a world and people it and look out through other eyes. You get to feel things, visit places and worlds you would never otherwise know. You learn that everyone else out there is a me, as well. You’re being someone else, and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.
Author DC Green visits Broughton for Book Week
DC Green both entertained and enthused our K – Year 6 students on Tuesday when he spoke about his books and gave them tips for writing engaging stories. The students attended in three sessions and each group was equally enthralled with his presentation.
Some classes had read his books and prepared drawings and had completed some related writing activities that were on display in the IRC. DC Green was very excited to see these and gave out some signed posters for budding authors.
The IRC will be awarding book prizes for the three students in each class who have most improved their writing during the next next few weeks after using some of the tips offered by DC Green.
The displays and more images of DC Green will be available shortly in the ‘Events’ section of this blog
Book Dominoes
We won’t be trying to break this record at Broughton – but what a great idea! Maybe we might try this on a smaller scale just for fun. Can you imagine returning all of the books to their proper place on the shelves?
Lisa Bu: How reading books inspired her new way of life
What happens when a dream you’ve held since childhood … doesn’t come true? As Lisa Bu adjusted to a new life in the United States, she turned to books to expand her mind and create a new path for herself. She shares her unique approach to reading in this lovely, personal talk about the magic of books.
Grandparents’ Day in the IRC
Students brought their Grandparents to see their library and to share favourite books and activities. Many Grandparents also purchased books to donate to the IRC collection on behalf of their Grandchild. The Grandchildren are given ‘first-borrowing’ rights. Almost $2000 worth of books were donated!
National Simultaneous Storytime 2013
Our school registered to take part in the National Simultaneous Storytime again this year. The three Kindergarten classes came to the IRC to listen to and read “The Wrong Book” by Nick Bland at precisely the same time as school libraries and public libraries all over Australia did the same.
Once again the story was brought to life by using an iPad app of the book projected onto the interactive whiteboard. Discussion of the characters and story followed after which students were provided with paper craft activities based on characters in the story. The students remembered the story from last year’s National Simultaneous Storytime, seen when in Prep, and we watched and listened to this book again as well.
Katrina Roe visits Prep – Year 6 (Author of ‘Marty’s nut free party’)
Last week the IRC Theatrette was transformed into a party room for the visit of Katrina Roe who both entertained and educated our Prep – Year 6 students about food allergies. She certainly had the attention of all the students as she led them in party games then read her new book Marty’s nut free party. The students went away knowing how to hold parties that could be happily attended by friends with food allergies – and they really enjoyed the story as well!
Keep reading to your kids! The seven reasons why…
I remember very well the enjoyment of reading aloud and sharing books with my children – even into their teenage years.
This post by Katherine Stone lists seven good reasons to keep on doing this.
Library Lover’s day @ BACIRC
It has become a tradition in our library for all of Year 9, on February 14 each year, to take part in ‘Speed Dating’. Books are pre-selected from all genres with appropriate but varying levels of reading.
Senior students observing the ‘set-up’ this morning could be heard reminiscing about their own experiences doing this three years ago. Clearly it was memorable and favourable!
Statistics are kept from the ‘rating’ sheets to make a display of most popular ‘dates’ and many students come back for second dates.
Library’s Lovers day!!
By Hayley B (Year 9 student)
Today was Library’s Lover’s Day 9. Our English class made their way down to the IRC where we stood behind a table, which was very prettily decorated, and which made us feel as if we were in a restaurant with our date sitting there staring at us. On the table next to our ‘date’ we had a cute red heart chocolate. Everyone was nervous for their first date, sitting down and opening to the first page and getting to know all about their date. After four minutes everyone rated their date and moved on to a new date and did the same thing all over again.
I think being at Library Lovers Day today was a great experience for everyone to perhaps find the right book for them, one which suits them best or maybe not even finding the right date at all but reading a variety of books.
Chaucer finale! National Year of Reading
The final BACIRC post for this year features our Year 6 student’s final activity in The National Year of Reading!
They finished the year by writing and then performing their own ‘Tales’ based (very loosely) on Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
Every year Year 6 produces an abridged Shakespearean play but this year they went one step further and wrote their own production. They called it The Broughton Tales and included:
The Teacher’s Tale
The Prefect’s Tale
The Parent’s Tale
The Office Tale
The Canteen’s Tale
The Groundsman’s Tale
The Music Tale
The Librarian’s Tale
and finally…
The Reverend’s Tale where a Christmas drama featured.
The introduction to each ‘Tale’ was in rhyme after which the students enacted one scene to match the ‘Tale’.
The Librarian’s Tale highlighted the usual Year 6 ‘gripe’ of not being allowed to borrow books restricted to High School Students.
Towards Reading – preschool literacy support activities
Although this site is mainly for parents and teachers of preschool age children, it would also be invaluable for teachers of students with learning difficulties. The activity cards for pre-reading awareness are delightful, with very creative ideas for making things to promote a desire to read or understand the purpose and need for text. (Also useful for a grandmother’s toolkit!)
Making use of our K-12 library again!
Yesterday the Year 9 Child Studies students came to the IRC for their lesson . First they were taught about the stages of the development of literacy skills from birth to school age, with emphasis on the importance and inter connectivity of all forms of communication. The use of books, digital or print, as a foundation for literacy development was demonstrated with illustrations from baby’s first recognition of shapes on a page. The introduction of words that eventually introduce concepts of fantasy as distinct from reality was then discussed – the problems this can cause and the fun this can initiate.
The Year 9 students looked at the K-2 collection of books and as Year 3 was in the IRC ‘borrowing’ books at the time, their teacher allowed us to ‘borrow’ the students in 3B to read them stories and discuss their story choices. A great time was had by all!
Day One of the Book Fair
Lunch time in the IRC was ‘mayhem’ today as students tried to find and purchase the books Murray had shown them yesterday.
After school, parents arrived and many happy little customers went home to read new books, carrying new posters and armed with new pencils, Biros, erasers and other somewhat useful equipment.
Some Mums left the IRC patiently listening to joke after joke from their child’s new joke book.
The One Hundred Acre Wood – 2B learns about relationships
Towards the end of last year and with a focus on the coming National Year of Reading class teacher, Kate Bradley, drew on A. A. Milne’s timeless classic Winnie-the-Pooh to help her class learn about relationships and also to use this literature to bind subject areas into an integrated unit of work. The students read the book then created their own characters who had to live together in their own class One Hundred Acre Wood behind the IRC. Students visited their ‘Wood’ often -sometimes bringing down their writing materials and working outside for added inspiration. This became their presentation area with characters (plastic bottles) standing next to poetry compositions (laminated on sticks). The display became a collaborative effort between the classroom teacher and Teacher Librarian with some Senior Students also assisting during study periods and the students benefited from all the added attention! In the following video Kate describes this unit of work.