2012 - The National Year of Reading
2012 is the National Year of Reading.
Did you know that nearly half the population struggles without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work? There are 46% of Australians who can't read newspapers; follow a recipe; make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle. Our Australian libraries and library associations are behind a collaborative campaign to turn 2012 into the National Year of Reading
The National Year of Reading 2012 is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It's about supporting reading initiatives while respecting the oral tradition of storytelling. It's about helping people discover and rediscover the magic of books.
Three goals have been identified to encourage a reading culture in every home and in turn a nation of readers:
- For all Australians to understand the benefits of reading as a life skill and a catalyst for well-being;
- To promote a reading culture in every home; and
- To establish an aspirational goal for families, of parents and caregivers sharing books with their children every day.
There are hundreds of National Year of Reading events and competitions scheduled to celebrate the year across Australia. We hope your school will either participate in local events or come up with your own celebration.
Mick Walsh, author of the Learning Curve, is thrilled to be part of it as a Friend of the Program.
Electronic Learning Curve Planner 2012
The team at The Learning Curve are excited to announce the Electronic Learning Curve Planner, for 2012.
As you know, student and teacher well-being is at the heart of the Learning Curve Planner program. To ensure that the valuable content of the hard copy diaries is carried through to add further benefit online, the electronic planner will contain the following features:
- Separate categories to aid student learning and well-being with the ability to track personal progress against goals set earlier in the year; making students improvements and progression measurable based on content viewed and forms completed online
- A means for students/teachers to track their progress towards their personal goals on a daily basis
- Teachers will be able to post tasks/updates to class students, individual students and parents
- Development of teacher-parent and teacher-student communications (i.e. to send/receive messages) supporting teacher-parent interaction through the ability for teachers to add comments regarding students and review responses; parents can respond and comment.
- There is also a reminder function to flag overdue tasks for students/parents
There are many more features not mentioned here, so please contact your local state representative for more detailed information.
*** All schools that have purchased hard copy diaries for 2012 have free access to the Electronic Learning Curve Planner for 2012! Please feel free to contact us for more information ***
