Oxford Australia Blog

Sharing our love of education, language, and books

Tag: literacy

  • 20,000 children wrote about their experience during lockdown. Here’s what we learned.

    Thank you to Shane Hill (Storyathon) for contributing to this article. Data from Oxford University Press in partnership with Storyathon, the largest story-writing event in Australia, reveals the impact COVID-19 has had on children’s vocabulary in Term 2 with students responding to the theme: ‘A Different World – Living in lockdown’. Words used in students’ stories…

  • Help us find the Australian Children’s Word of the Year!

    Do your students talk Trump or Turnbull, fidget spinners or footy cards? Oxford University Press want to learn more about the way children communicate, and to help us do this we are launching the Children’s Word of the Year free writing competition. Primary school-aged children are invited to nominate their ‘Word of the Year’ and…

  • Using humour to inspire young writers

    Hey, want to hear a joke? Novice pirates make terrible singers because they can’t hit the high seas.  (Cue collective groan) Sometimes humour can be in-your-face and silly (like the joke above), and other times it can be more subtle. Whether it’s a pun, a child’s knock-knock joke, a funny movie, or situation comedy on…

  • Creating inclusive literacy learning experiences

    Rudyard Kipling famously said that, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind”. Words can heal, hurt, excite, sadden – or just help with basic, everyday tasks and communications. So much human interaction is based on words; written, spoken, signed, or even tweeted! It is little wonder then that literacy learning is…

  • Using design to engage readers of different ages

    Book design is more than just putting text and image together on a page. Many people don’t realise it, but HOW text and images are put together are just as important as the content of the text and image by itself. A reader engages with content that is presented through a combination of fonts, colour palettes,…

  • Yarning Strong: stories about family for young readers

    Dr Anita Heiss is the author of non-fiction, historical fiction, commercial women’s fiction, poetry, social commentary and travel articles. She is a regular guest at writers’ festivals and travels internationally performing her work and lecturing on Indigenous literature. She is an Indigenous Literacy Day Ambassador and a proud member of the Wiradjuri nation of central…

  • Taming the roly-poly boys

    Julie Baillie, Primary Education and Professional Development Manager, reminisces about her first day of teaching and the lesson she learnt about the power of story time. I remember being a young, fresh-faced teacher (with L-plates still firmly attached) sitting nervously in front of my class of 26 brand new Reception students. It was the very first…

  • The importance of reading choices

    Choice in reading materials builds engagement and assists students to have a voice in what they want to learn. To ensure choice, teachers need to have a well-organised classroom library of cognitively appropriate print and digital books including many different topics, genres and text types. Book choice must be at each student’s independent reading level…