Literacy

National Simultaneous Storytime 

Each year our school celebrates National Simultaneous Storytime. This year it will be held on Wednesday 22nd May. Classes at VPS will have the opportunity to watch the story being read and to complete some activities related to the text. If you have a young child who is not yet at school and would like to participate, National Simultaneous Storytime is available for everyone to access. To find out more, look at the website below. 

https://alia.org.au/Web/Web/Events/Event_Display.aspx?EventKey=NSS2024

What is active listening and why is it important?

Active listening is something that you may have heard a teacher mention during Parent Teacher Interviews or it may have been written in your child's report. So what do teachers mean when they talk about active listening and how is it different to regular listening? Active listening is giving full attention to the speaker and trying to understand the complete message being conveyed. Remembering the conversation or being able to recall important details are signs that a child has been involved in active listening. Non-verbal signs of active listening include actions like nodding and smiling. 

Some of the benefits of having a child  who is an active listener is:

• There are fewer misunderstandings
• Often they have more self-reliance
• Generally, it leads to an improvement in productivity

So how can you improve it at home? 

The first step is to model it as a parent. 5 ways that you can do this is to:

1. Maintain eye contact. 
2. Avoid interrupting. Let the speaker complete his or her thoughts before you try to respond. 
3. Ask questions. One way to show you are listening is to ask specific questions about what is being said. 
4. Repeat back what the speaker says in your own words. 
5. Listen for the total meaning. Any message has two components: the content of the message and the underlying feeling or attitude. Both parts are important and give the message meaning. Listen for both, the content and the underlying emotions.

Some activities that you can do to practice this are to: 

• Have conversations about things your child is interested in. This gives your child a chance to engage in a real conversation, practising both speaking and listening.
• Create a list of questions with your child for him or her to ask you or a sibling. After one person has answered, see how many the other can remember. Switch roles and see how well the other person does.
• Cook with your child. Read the recipe to him or her, having your child listen to and follow each step to complete the recipe correctly.

The recommendations and activities are paraphrased from the Oxford Learning article on Improving Active Listening Skills 

Fortnightly Segments 

Comprehension Question 

This fortnight’s questions are:

What might have happened in the time between the two important events in your book?

Was this a difficult book to read? What made it difficult or easy to read? 

Does this book give you any ideas for future writing pieces of your own? 

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. 

I looked out the window and couldn’t believe what I saw…