Home Reading 

At St John’s, we strongly encourage home reading. We do this because many studies have found that parental engagement in education is consistently associated with children’s subsequent academic success. These studies have found that, on average, parental engagement leads to a positive impact of approximately four additional months’ progress over the course of a year. Approaches such as reading at home can have a positive impact for all children. Further research highlights the benefits of reading to children before they are able to read, and then of reading with children as soon as they are able to read.

If you are interested in why it is so important to continue to read with children, even after a child can read independently, this article is a great read. 

Below are two other articles that may give some useful ideas when reading at home with your child. 

Six things you should do when reading with your kids

This year, we have welcomed a new Inclusion Teacher, Rebecca Neiberding. Rebecca will be working four days a week as the Inclusion Teacher. She is currently completing professional learning in MultiLit Programs. These programs are evidence-based, explicit and effective literacy intervention programs for teaching reading skills to children who are in the bottom 25% of the expected range for their age group. These interventions will start with the junior primary students and later in the year will be focussed on our middle and upper primary students.

Our Inclusion Assistants will continue to implement Sounds~Write and Reading Interventions. These will start in Week 4. Further to this, Rebecca will support teachers in the classroom with strategies and support for specific students and in the Personalised Planning process. 

If you have any questions about Inclusion, please contact Rebecca (rebecca.neiberding@cg.catholic.edu.au) and/or myself (rebekah.brown@cg.catholic.edu.au). 

Rebekah Brown

Assistant Principal and Inclusion Coordinator