Good News StoriesFrom St. Peter's College, Clyde North Campus | Cranbourne Campus, VictoriaContributed by Joyce Sendecky, Head of Library, Digital Technologies Teacher There and back again: ‘Flipping’ the Reading Program to remote mode The framework for the Reading Program for 2020 consisted of a combination of wide reading and explicitly taught strategies in mini - lessons by Teacher Librarians to class groups. Students would also be involved in a combination of Sustained Silent Reading (free choice novel) and a regular one-on-one conferencing session to progress the goals and skills learned in the plenary sessions. Extra teachers had also been assigned to assist with student conferencing, and, as we approached the middle of March 2020 we were making some headway in our reading lessons; students were reading, responding and setting strategic reading goals. However, the way schools were to function was about to make a momentous change. Needing to 're-think' the Reading Program We made great efforts to make sure students all went to remote learning with a supply of novels, with the expectation and encouragement that they would keep up the minimum of 30 mins reading per day, as was a requirement of a St. Peter’s student. So were students still reading at home? We had some evidence through the online written responses while continuing our Reading Program lessons, that most students were engaging in their novels (frequency unknown).This is what we promoted on their intranet Reading Detectives Program class pages: "What if I run out of books to read because all the libraries are closed? GREAT QUESTION!! Here are some suggestions: fiction books your brothers or sisters have finished reading or re-read an old favourite. Also try any non-fiction books or interesting magazines at home for example cookbooks, gardening books and motor magazines, daily newspapers and of course eBooks & Audio Books! Link to ‘My Library’, then 'My Reading' to Wheeler’s eBooks and free Audible audio books The change of emphasis - reading to writing Unique stories for school students during a pandemic “During Term 1 when you had just eased into your Year 7 school routine, caught up with friends, started to make new friends and gotten to know your teachers and subjects a bit better; all the while a gradual dilemma was spreading through-out the world, a virus called COVID 19. It was declared a ‘global pandemic’ and it was spreading to all corners of the world - including yours! All of us, especially you as school students are now living through historical events that have led to never-before-experienced changes. This time in history will be written about, studied and commented on for years to come! Soon your usual school was to make a dramatic change….” Now it's time to tell your story........ With an (ABC) video as an introduction, as well as a list of sentence starters and prompts based on our reading strategies that they could cut/paste into their online workbooks, the student stories took off! It was almost as if we had unleashed all their pent up emotions! I had hoped that this narrative writing activity would be a more informal session and useful for their well-being at the same time and I feel we had hit the mark! The TL’s and teachers were ‘virtually’ with the students to prompt, encourage and guide them through this story writing process. Here are some responses: I was actually excited this year for school because all I wanted to do this year was get better grades than last year and be a better friend and person to everyone. It was a school start like any other until covid showed up and school had to finish quickly. I wondered about this virus that was spreading throughout the world. People are dying and I could never feel the pain of their families because I know it's hard to lose someone you love. Many questions were being asked but were there any answers? Everyone was making predictions and forecasts about what would happen. I wondered when the virus would end, because I just wanted death to stop happening and go back to our normal life where everyone was happily living. I wanted to know why someone would eat a bat???!!! Kanika. I wondered about this virus that was spreading throughout the world and I wondered what it felt like to have the virus. I studied about COVID-19 and how deadly and spreadable it is. I learnt that the virus was a strand of coronavirus and that a pandemic similar but on a smaller scale has happened before in 2002 to 2004 it was the SARS outbreak. SARS was also a strand of coronavirus but it only killed less than a 1000 people but as of 21st of May 2020 there have been nearly 5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 328 thousand people have died which is incomprehensible compared to the numbers of the SARS outbreak”. Medwin In 2020 this year, it has been a hilly ride, at the beginning of the year we had the unfortunate death of Kobe Bryant, then there were large tensions between America and Iran I believe. This entire year is a death trap, that is definitely the case with Covid-19, unfortunately it has taken the lives of 327 thousand lives, there could be more soon as around 5 million cases are confirmed. Covid personally has affected me a lot, it’s a lot different in the week, but one thing is that I can sleep in. Arien Moving on with Reading Although we enjoyed some online activities including Bookwidgets book cover puzzles, along with our online reading program, generally students complained of ‘screen fatigue’; consequently our lesson times were formally shortened to allow for a break from electronic devices. The uptake of eBooks also did not dramatically spike to any extent, however the borrowing of audiobooks did increase moderately. The general feeling I am receiving from students, certainly in year 7 & 8 is they want to return to face-to-face interaction (at a distance) with friends, teachers and staff and also see what new titles we have been gathering while they have been away!
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