Literature and Literacy in the Primary+ Classroom

Patricia Wrightson Prize (Children’s Literature, $30,000)
The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon, Aaron Blabey (Penguin Group Australia)
Brotherband 1: The Outcasts, John Flanagan (Random House Australia)
Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend, Steven Herrick (University of Queensland Press)
A Bear and a Tree, Stephen Michael King (Penguin Group Australia)
The Tender Moments of Saffron Silk: Kingdom of Silk Series # 6, Glenda Millard and illustrator Stephen Michael King (HarperCollins Australia) Dragonkeeper Book 4: Blood Brothers, Carole Wilkinson (Walker Books Australia)

The following Year 3 learning sequence was developed by Year 3/4 teacher Melissa Bennett in our work as a Teacher Development School. The sequence is linked to The Australian Curriculum - English content descriptions.  You can access The Australian Curriculum by clicking this link:http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/  ;

This sequence was developed using the literary text, “The Twits” by RoaldDahl

We've collected 10 great resources that can be used as part of classroom activities on World Literacy Day. How will you be celebrating with your children?

I've written before about the importance of books that encourage children to make and do things. This is a revised version of a post I wrote in 2012. I want to stress that there are four main reasons they matter.

First, they offer reluctant readers (especially boys) another way into reading.
Second, they require and teach literacy skills not generally used in narrative forms.
Third, they encourage creativity and problem solving.
Fourth, they get children doing things in an age when it's easy to be inactive.

In the wake of heightened concern over Australias declining standards in childhood literacy and the proposed 1billion reading blitz to address the issue a leading international expert in reading difficulties has questioned whether this is just another...

This week we celebrate the birthday of Mem Fox (born 5 March 1946), Australian writer of children’s books. She is the author of such favourite picture books as Koala Lou, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, and Wombat Divine, but the book that made her a household name is her first book, Possum Magic, the runaway bestseller that has sold several million copies since it was published in 1983. It is the tale of possums Hush and Grandma Poss, who leave their bush home to find a cure for Hush’s magic invisibility.The illustrations by Julie Vivas are a significant part of the book’s attraction, but its astonishing success is due in large measure to the story’s strongly Australian theme.  The 1980s were a time of increasing pride in Australian identity and culture. Possum Magic grew out of this surge of nationalist sentiment.