Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) 2023

A massive congratulations to the 80 St Joseph’s students who completed the Premier’s Reading Challenge this year - WHAT A PHENOMENAL COMMITMENT!

Our remarkable readers are: Bridie Balderston, Oliver Bowen, Rubi Cameron, Isla Campbell, Flynn Cashen, Olivia Cortez, Ely Enriquez, Roman Falkenmire, Nicholas Gordon, William Grima, Hudson Howell, Ruby Johnson, Miller Kennedy, Jack Lin, Aarsi Malla, Ivy McDonald, Jackson Morgan, Finlay Newberry, Maeve Parker, Nina Power, Archer Roberts, Isabella Ryan, Kye Sallustio, Olly Sheehan, Evelyn Strange, Mason Taggart McKay, Alora Attenborough, Janahli Bray, Kinsley Brown-Carter, Mabel Cashen, Cleo Cox, Sanvee Dahal, Hamish Faint, Kohen Fensbo, Brax Gaffney, Elaina Gross, Henri Hochstadt, Ryan Lee, Charli Lye, James Pacificar, Layla Pollard, Chloe Refalo, Maggie Richards, Austin Searle, Jaibaaz Singh, Mia Skene, Bethany Taylor, Mason Thomas, Jorge Colin Verad, Andy Vo, Mason Walsh, Ellie Walsh, Luca Bamford, Aliyah Bathla, Zavier Beattie, Sophie Beveridge, Oscar Cortez, Annabelle Eldridge, Elijah Espiritu, Mason Handley, Azelle Hayes, Jessica Ho, Vivian Ho, John Lennox, Charli McNeill, Sullivan Pryor, Henrick Roper, Akain Samarapperuma, Neebhan Sherpa, Lucas Sneesby, Angus Steadman, Chloe Zhang, Ari Pollard, Aayushi Kude, Grace Beveridge, Vickie Pham, Amelia Lennox, Sophia Quach and Sienna Ramirez.

Well done to all of you, your certificates will be issued late in Term 4.

Overdue Books

The end of Term 3 is now upon us and it is time to start rounding up those overdue library books. During Week 1 of Term 4, I will be sending home overdue notices and it would save me a lot of time and paper if I had no overdue notices to print! Keeping that in mind, I strongly encourage all families to ensure that all overdue library books are returned to school this week, Week 10, failing that, the first week of Term 4. The forthcoming school holidays is the ideal time to conduct an overdue library book hunt, who knows what treasures you might find!

Reading for Pleasure - It’s Good For You!

If you’ve ever doubted the benefits of reading for pleasure, Softlink has a wonderful article about this. They have tips for how you can support your child at home and also ideas for encouraging this wonderful habit beyond primary school. If you have extra time, there’s also a link to an article with more in-depth information about this topic.

"The strongest positive impact on reading engagement and learning gains come from student self-selection of reading materials. When reading materials are selected for students the links to engagement and learning gain decline significantly."

How Reading Motivation and Engagement Enable Reading Achievement: Policy Implications, Ana Taboada Barber and Susan Lutz Klauda

Reading at Home

The students at St Joseph’s are able to access ebooks, audiobooks and magazines through SORA, the Armidale Diocese digital library. SORA has an extensive collection of ebooks, audiobooks and magazines for students of all ages.

Instructions for logging onto SORA are as follows:

SORA

Getting started with Sora

Sora - get free ebooks and audiobooks from your school.

Step 1: Install the SORA app from Apple App Store or Google Play Store, or soraapp.com.

Step 2: When in SORA, click on I have a setup code, then sign in.

The “setup” code is cenetau

Sign into your School – Select ACEN from the dropdown box.

Step 3: Browse the explore tab and borrow a book. Your book will open so you can start reading right away.

Step 4: Close the book and go to the shelf to see all your books. From there, you can:

Select Open book or Open audiobook to read or listen to the book.
Select Options to renew or return the book and more.

© 2020 OverDrive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

You will need to use your school username and password to access this.

WORLD BOOK ONLINE

St Joseph’s also has a subscription to World Book Online! This means that our students have access to this wonderful resource free of charge should they wish to access it from home. World Book Online may be accessed via the Oliver home page or by visiting the World Book website www.worldbookonline.com

World Book Online is a safe, trusted, 21st-century learning environment for students.

The World Book products our school has access to include:

Kids: simple navigation, easy to read articles, translations and text to speech (with 10 voices). It includes educational games, activities, science experiments, a dictionary, an atlas, interactive maps, map outlines and a tool for comparing places or animals.

Student: expansive reference database and multimedia library. It includes games, behind the headlines, citation builder and research tools.

Timelines: over 650 timelines including Gold Rushes in Australia, Australian Prime Ministers, Cricket World Cup, Star Wars and Harry Potter. Edit or create your own timelines.

Our User ID: joseph2340

Password: joseph2340

Message Stick

Miss Kim Taggart