Literacy Spotlight.
Reading. There are those who love it and there are those that hate it.
It’s a massive part of everyday life- being able to read and being able to make sense of what you have read.
At Mooroolbark College, we value building the literacy skills of our students. At Years 7 and 8 students attend Literacy classes 3 times in the fortnight. In these sessions, our students engage in a range of activities to help build their skills and confidence in all areas of literacy.
In Term 1 we have focussed on building oral and visual literacy skills. We have explored how visual communication is used in everyday life- street signs, warning signs, computer icons- and how symbols and signs work together to communicate meaning. Oral literacy skills have been practiced and refined through small group and whole class discussions.
At Mooroolbark College, we know that when our students can develop a personal love of reading; when they learn to read for passion, they will have greater success when reading required texts in different subjects. This term, we have been focusing on build a personal love of reading during DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read).
Our students have enjoyed reading a range of books in a range of formats. Our Year 7 students have really taken to eBooks and audiobooks after their amazing introductory library session.
Our Year 7s have commented:
‘That was amazing! I had music blaring in my ears as I read. I LOVE READING!!!’
‘I was finding the physical book a bit overwhelming. I loved that there was a digital copy on Wheelers. I like reading of a screen much more.’
‘Being able to close my eyes and just listen to the story is great.’
Our Year 8 classes also had the opportunity to try out the Book Café. Our students read the first page of a range of books and ranked them. They used this ranking to identify areas of interest and potential new books to read.
Some of our Year 8s have enjoyed discovering new books:
‘I read ‘Heartstopper’, a suggestion from Mr Blair. I liked reading it and liked the character design.’
‘I read ‘Wonka’, written by Sibeal Pounder and two interesting things we’re that it used bigger words for onomatopoeia and that the chapters were the songs from the original movie.’
‘I was listening to a podcast on Spotify called Real Survival Stories’
