Term 2 Literacy News

As you will see within this newsletter, we will be welcoming Matt Glover, international author and writing consultant, in a few weeks time. Matt is going to be working with all of our students and teachers on ways we can continue to improve our writing practices and ways we can inspire our children to see themselves as authors. The work we will be doing with Matt will complement the focus we have had on writing and spelling during 2019. Throughout this term, a teacher from each year level has been learning about teaching grammar in context, as part of professional development. This professional learning is being facilitated by Misty Anoniou and the Catholic Education Office. Across the school, we have focused on ensuring that we are using quality literature and texts to explore exemplary writing. These mentor texts are used to help students understand and discuss syntactic structures and grammar. They also provide students with a model for experimenting with different ways to create sentences and paragraphs. For example, in the 5/6 area the students have read ‘The Stone Lion’ and taken inspiration from the way Margaret Wild begins some of her sentences with a subordinate clause. They have mimicked this in their own writing, creating sentences such as:

As he felt himself shivering and breathing heavily, he saw it.

As I ran out of the building, I began to think to myself can this day get any worse?

Despite knowing it was against the law, the old man pulled down his black balaclava.

The 1/2s have used ‘My Two Blankets’, exploring similes and comparative languages. They used their understandings to create some fantastic sentences such as:

Pippa Duns - The sun was crackling like bacon sizzling on a frying pan.

Ollie Paddon - Zahra grabbed the handle and started pumping water into the pot like a mad dog.

Olivia Lewin - The meerkats had tiny brown eyes like the size of blueberries.

In terms of how you can support your child with their writing at home, we recommend the following:

Have a space where your child/ren has access to pens, paper, markers etc. They can draw, write and create.

Read with them every single day and focus on rich literature (even the ‘big’ kids). Speak about the book and what it happening and why you love it.

Have an authentic purpose for writing. Can your child write a fan letter/email to their favourite star or a letter to a relative or friend? Can they write your shopping list for you?