Literacy

Book Recommendations

Finding books for your child when in the local Library or helping your child with book recommendations can be tricky. Every child is different and they all like different things. In previous editions of the newsletter we've written about how to choose a 'good fit' book and we have included some book recommendations, including adding the Children's Book Award Winners. There are some other tricks to finding good books. Below are some helpful hints: 

1. Ask your child to speak to their friends and see what they're enjoying reading. 
2. Book Wizard by Scholastic. https://bookwizard.scholastic.com/. This is a student friendly tool that allows you to search using things like book level. 
3. Use Good Read shelves. https://www.goodreads.com/genres/list. This is a great tool to look and sort out books you like and what you don't perhaps enjoy. There are thousands of books on there so parent help is definitely needed for this one. 
4. Teachers use a number of Education Department sites to find book recommendations and often they have handy hints for parents too. It doesn't have to be Victorian as the other States have excellent information too. The Department of Education NSW has a list of the 'Nine must read books for your child' on their website https://education.nsw.gov.au/parents-and-carers/learning/english/9-must-read-books-for-your-child and 'Ten great reads - Primary school students' https://education.nsw.gov.au/parents-and-carers/learning/english/ten-great-reads-for-your-primary-school-child 

Ways you can assist your child when listening to them read

Over time most parents become experts at listening to their children read. However, like anything, there are always ways to improve. Below are some suggestions as to how to effectively listen to your child read and how you can prompt them to improve their understanding of the text. 

The pause, prompt and praise strategy mentioned in the text is a handy one to remember. 

Source - https://readingwritingcentre.education.qld.gov.au/rwc-resources/Documents/rc-parent-booklet.pdf

Fortnightly Segments 

Writing Challenge

If your child enjoys their writing and is keen to write for enjoyment at home, below is a prompt that you could ask your child to write about. 

You’re organising the ultimate birthday for a friend. What have you planned for them? Write a story about the event. 

Comprehension Question 

This fortnight’s questions are:

What are technical words? Were there any technical words in your book that were new to you? 

Can you think of another title for this book? Why would it be a good title?