Ginnette Cameron-Gardner – Primary Teacher/Librarian

Experiencing Literature in the Primary Library

In the Primary Library we listen with anticipation, discuss new vocabulary, respond to texts, share feelings and thoughts about the events and characters in texts and make connections to our own life experiences.

Experiencing Literature with the Primary and Kornmehl students is a blessing, an experience that I gladly share with their parents, caregivers, siblings and other teachers. We do not just read a story, we dive into it, discussing the beginning, middle and end, the complication and resolution, the connection between the illustrations and the word text, the level of language and the font used, the style and methods of illustration, how visual techniques capture meaning and emotion, and the appropriateness of all those things when evaluating them for the audience.  

There are lots of thought-provoking moments, such as, for example, the time when a student in Kindergarten steepled his fingers and with a look of erudition said, “Well, in the olden days they used things called tickets to pay for a ride on a bus, train, ferry and so on, but now we have Opal cards.”

We had just read Gary, written and illustrated by Leila Rudge. This shortlisted CBCA book is about a pigeon who could not fly and watched wistfully as the other pigeons were taken away in the Travel Basket for the adventure of flying home. The other pigeons kindly brought him mementos of their trips and also recounted their adventures. He kept a scrapbook and dreamed of one day having an adventure. One night he and his scrapbook tumbled into the basket where he fell asleep and awakened the next day to find that he had arrived at the starting point of the races and had to work out how to get home.

Another comment that raised a smile from the teacher was the explanation provided by a student of the illustration on the endpapers of a book as being a map: “It’s, an aerial view. You know, a bird’s eye view, not that of a bird on the ground but one in the air looking down.” 

An example of deep thinking and making connections is the comment of a Kornmehl child when we experienced the book Snow Wombat by Susannah Chambers, Illustrated by Mark Jackson. “Those foxes in that picture are brown foxes, but they must have come from a warm climate or it has only just snowed or they would have white fur, for camouflage.  I know because I have a book that tells me these things”.

There are many comments that stay with me long after the lesson has finished. A particular interaction which touched my heart-strings came from two of our younger children discussing the appropriateness of having X on the map to indicate the wombat’s safe, warm burrow.

Boy ….”X is usually treasure on a Pirates map”.

Girl: “That is still ‘treasure’. Home is treasure. If you haven’t got a warm house to live in it’s not good.” 

The ensuing discussion revealed that a number of our Pre-school students have noted elderly people on a park bench or in a doorway with plastic bags and obviously homeless.The students at this School are caring and thoughtful and this was just one example of a child who drew attention to ‘treasure’ taking many forms.

Parents of these children possibly recognise their child from the style of the comments. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the many, many comments from children in every class that demonstrate deep thinking, connections being made between their lives inside and outside of school and evidence of their  confidence to speak out and voice their thoughts, as well as the ability to articulate them.  We have a wonderful future ahead of us with these children growing up and moving out into the world.

Congratulations to the 3 students who have completed the NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge over the last week, these are Kira Rothschild Year 3, Sarah Manoy Year 4, and Marina Akstein Year 5. Mazal tov מזל טוב

The books the classes have been read that are in the Children’s Book Council of Australia Shortlist will be entered over the next few days for the students. This may complete the Reading Challenge for many students who have not quite reached the required number of entries.

Students please enter your reading, parents please encourage them to do so, or for the younger students perhaps you could assist them in doing so. The NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge closes at midnight on Friday 25 August.