Principal's News
The reading program at APS
The Year Level Bulletins this week aim share some of the learning opportunities children have engaged in to develop and promote their reading skills and their understanding of themselves as readers.
Our program is underpinned by the goal to promote willing and enthusiastic readers. However, this goal cannot simply be achieved at school. It is a partnership between home and school. Books alone do not teach children to read. Our program at school addresses a child’s ability to decode, comprehend and develop fluency. The video below outlines what we do at school, the role you can play at home and how you can support and nurture a positive approach towards reading.
The following snippet is taken from PETA (Primary English Teaching Association Australia) and offers some excellent advice on how you can support your child.
Children need ongoing quality experiences with books. Providing a regular, reading routine at home assists children in their quest for reading success.
The media often overstates the need to only teach phonics. Phonics is the relationship between letters and sounds and is not the only strategy children use when reading unfamiliar words. There are other effective ways to assist children identify unfamiliar words, which includes the practice of encouraging children to look for meaning. Prior to saying anything to assist the reader, allow sufficient wait time. Readers need to look around for clues. The aim is to move the reader towards independence as quickly as possible and that does mean getting out of the way.
The Reading Journal, that your child brings home, is designed to support you to better understand how you can guide your child towards becoming a willing and enthusiastic reader.
Installation of the Pod
Thanks to our community for the funds raised by PFA and a donation from one of our families to enable us to purchase the woven pod designed and made by a wonderful artist, Gay Chatfield.
This pod will enhance the play space in the front garden of our school and will offer future opportunities for it to be maintained through our garden program. The children have already gravitated to this space and have enjoyed using the pod in various ways including role playing, using it as quiet space to chat and using it as inspiration to create their own.
Writer's Festival
It was wonderful having so many talented authors and illustrators in our school for the Writers’ Festival. The children were exposed to processes that take place behind the scenes in creating a published book. Children were offered experiences in storytelling, character creations and development and exploring how pictures can be a powerful tool to inspire us to write. Thank you so much to Steph for organising this day as a valuable introduction to our Read-a-thon and doubled as an opportunity to strengthen our writing skills and knowledge.
Rochelle Cukier and Connie Apostolos
Principal's