Tutorial Group News

Literacy Planet

Congratulations to Rose Mary Lauchai (7.5), Ro Da Thangaw (8.2) and Harnaaz Kaur (7.2) for coming in 1st, 2nd and 4th respectively in the recent Literacy Planet competition that ran during Term 2 tutorial groups.

We caught up with Mr. Ben Cork, the Literacy Coordinator, to find out more about the program.

When asked to tell us more about Literacy Planet, Mr. Cork said that, "it is a games based software program which looks at reinforcing the core conventions of literacy. Things like sentence starters, word endings, word blends, grammar, punctuation, and that kind of thing.

Literacy Planet works really well for all students, but especially EAL students because it's not necessarily culturally contextual. It's just looking at words and structures, so you can do it from wherever you're from.  

It's got lots of support; (like) when you read a book, for example, you can push a button and it will tell you what a word means. It adjusts and adapts to all sorts of levels, which is great for EAL because you have quite a broad range in there.

They can learn at their own pace... and they seem to really enjoy it.  It was fantastic that they really got engaged with it, and I believe that some kids even took it home to practice on it.  I was really, really happy to be able to say that the top student in the whole school is an EAL student."

The students received certificates as well as boxes of chocolate to celebrate their triumphs.  Good job, girls! We're very proud of the effort you've put into your work!