From the Principal
SOCCER
Best wishes to all the soccer teams for a great season that has begun. There has been a great response this year. Special thanks to those who have stepped up to coach and manage teams. My thanks to Michelle Randall for all the great work she has done to organise the teams and I encourage you to help in any way you can.
SPELLATHON
We are holding a Spellathon fundraiser this year that we hope you will support. The money raised from this and our pie drive will help pay for the new Chrome Books in the library.
These computers are a great help to students who have been doing NAPLAN online this week. Mr Haigh is also using them for activities in the library including STEM, research, testing and online typing courses.
As part of our Spellathon we will be holding a house Spelling Bee competition to find the school’s best speller. It should be a fun event and is to be held on Friday 14th June at 12.30pm. Please come along to watch. You would be most welcome.
PRINCIPAL’S CONFERENCE
I will be away next Tuesday 21st May till Friday 24th May attending the NSW Association of Catholic Schools Principals conference in Sydney. Mr Haigh will be in charge during my absence.
Kindergarten 2019-READY–SET-GO– PROGRAM
We have had lots of interest in our Kindergarten readiness program. Our next session will be held on 22nd May and will be about –Counting, Shapes, and Colours. It is from 2.10pm -3.10pm
BOOK FAIR
Thank you for your support of our Book Fair. We raised over a $1100 to buy more books for our library. It is great that you are supporting a love of reading in your children.
The article below again reinforces how much reading can help your child’s learning.
“Young children whose parents read them five books a day enter kindergarten having heard about 1.4 million more words than kids who were never read to, a new study found.
This “million word gap” could be one key in explaining differences in vocabulary and reading development, said Jessica Logan, lead author of the study and assistant professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University.
Even kids who are read only one book a day will hear about 290,000 more words by age 5 than those who don’t regularly read books with a parent or caregiver.
“Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school,”
“They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily.”
Here is how many words kids would have heard by the time they were 5 years old: Never read to, 4,662 words; 1-2 times per week, 63,570 words; 3-5 times per week, 169,520 words; daily, 296,660 words; and five books a day, 1,483,300 words.
“The word gap of more than 1 million words between children raised in a literacy-rich environment and those who were never read to is striking..
The words kids hear in books are going to be much more complex, difficult words than they hear just talking to their parents and others in the home,”
For instance, a children’s book may be about penguins in Antarctica – introducing words and concepts that are unlikely to come up in everyday conversation.
The words kids hear from books may have special importance in learning to read.
Kathy Neely