Literacy

National Simultaneous Storytime

On Wednesday, May 21st, our school joined thousands of others across the country for National Simultaneous Storytime. This year’s book, The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel, shared a heartwarming story of friendship, belonging, and finding home.

Students enjoyed coming together to listen, reflect, and take part in meaningful activities inspired by the book. It was a wonderful celebration of storytelling and a great opportunity to connect as a school community.

A big thank you to our Library Leaders (Eirini and Chloe) for their fantastic read-aloud video and to everyone who took part in making the event so special!

What Can You Do After Reading a Book?

After reading a story, it’s good to give students the chance to reflect, respond and get creative. At school, we often follow up a read-aloud or reading session with a short task that helps deepen comprehension and encourages engagement.

Here are some easy, flexible activities you can try at home with your child:

Draw a Character or Scene Encourage your child to sketch their favourite part of the story, an important scene, or one of the main characters. It’s a simple way to reinforce visualisation and recall.

Write a Sequel or What Happens Next After finishing the story, ask, What could happen after the last page? This encourages creative thinking and narrative development.

Map the Setting Have your child create a map of where the story takes place. This helps build understanding of setting, sequence, and spatial awareness.

Act It Out Choose a key scene and act it out together. This can help with dialogue, expression, and remembering important events.

Make a Model Using LEGO, blocks, or household materials, create something from the story. It’s a hands-on way to connect with the text.

These activities don’t need to be long or complicated. Even 10–15 minutes of follow-up can help children process what they’ve read, build comprehension skills, and engage with books in a meaningful way.

Comprehension Questions 

This fortnight’s questions are:

• If you were one of the characters in the book, would you have acted differently? Tell me when, why and how. 
• Does the setting of this story remind you of the setting in other stories? Describe