celebrating literacy and numeracy
National Literacy and Numeracy Week
in New South Wales 31 August - 6 September 2009
Resources
NLNW Videos and Audio Files
Audio files
Ten literacy and numeracy tips These audio files are intended for busy parents who would like some ideas about developing their children’s literacy and numeracy skills.
They are available translated into six languages:
Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish and Vietnamese to listen to online, to download to an MP3 or to print out.
The tips are grouped to match the Years at school that your child is in:
Kindergarten–Year 2; Years 3–4; and the Middle Years 5–8.
Click on the title of the video you wish to view:
Videos for parents
1. What is NAPLAN? This video is presented by Kate O'Donnell, a senior officer from the test development section of the Educational Measurement and School Accountability Directorate.
This short video is divided into three sections and informs parents what the NAPLAN assessment is; helps them understand their child’s results; and gives some brief advice about helping children at home. This video shows scenes of students from Strathfield North Public School doing the NAPLAN assessments.
In addition, the script from this video has been translated into six community languages (Arabic, Turkish, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and Vietnamese) and is available beside the video. Also available beside the video is a downloadable audiofile of each language suitable for an MP3 player or iPod.
2. Everyday numeracy K-4 This is a short video for parent/carer use that depicts a mother and her child doing simple numeracy-related activities around the home to develop deeper understanding and awareness of: shape, pattern, counting and number, measurement and calculating. There are many fun things that parents and carers can enjoy with their children which will assist in building numeracy skills.
The video could be the basis of workshops at school gatherings with parents/carers to encourage the development of children's numeracy.
Videos for parents and teachers
3. Supporting young children's literacy development This video is intended for both teachers and parents. It would be ideal for use by teachers at school gatherings with parents/carers. The video could be basis of parent workshops around using reading at home as a coaching tool to encourage the development of a child's literacy.
In the video, educational psychologist, Dr Scott Paris has many shared messages for teachers and parents. He offers rich insights into how teachers and parents can support young learners, particularly in the important aspect of comprehension, an aspect of literacy that needs to be encouraged early and developed throughout the middle and later years of schooling.
Dr Paris' presentation is targeted at teachers and parents who are keen to engage more deeply in how parents and teachers can work together in complementary ways to support young literacy learners.
The skills and ideas that Dr Paris explores include:
- the importance of sharing books together
- the need to read a range of genres or types of texts (that is, books and other forms of writing)
- the importance of explicit teaching (that is, taking a skill and specifically teaching what it is, how to do it and how it can help)
- parents thinking of their time reading with children as a form of coaching which he calls cognitive coaching (that is, developing perception, memory, judgment and reasoning).
Accompanying this video is a short interview wherein Dr Paris discusses such things as comprehension, reading assessment and ways to encourage children to read.
Videos for teachers
4. Teaching narrative writing The 2008 NLNW Ambassador for NSW is Christopher Cheng, a children's author who has written several successful books. Chris uses his novel, New Gold Mountain, about the experiences of the Chinese on the goldfields in the 1850s as the basis for a Masterclass intended for primary teachers when teaching the structure of a narrative.
This video was filmed at Our Lady Queen of Peace at Gladesville with a very responsive Year 5 class. Chris provides teachers with a strong, clear model of how to set up and conduct an effective lesson about narrative writing using explicit and systematic techniques and incorporating modelled, guided and independent writing.
Along with the video, Chris is interviewed by a teacher from the school about various techniques when writing a narrative.
5. Why use maths? This video is a resource for secondary Mathematics teachers. It involves vox pops from Years 8-9 students from Kincoppal Rose Bay, Trinity College Auburn and Concord High School where they express their varied opinions about maths and its relevance to their future careers.
Three young professionals (a graphic designer, a marketing officer and a retail worker) explain in plain English how very significant mathematics is to their work. The video should provide Mathematics teachers with an interesting platform for encouraging students to take their studies of mathematics more seriously.
6. Critical numeracy in context The Tasmanian 2008 NLNW Ambassador, Dr Jane Watson, Head of Mathematics, Faculty of Education at the University of Tasmania is renowned for her research into statistics, chance and data.
This video is intended to assist secondary Mathematics teachers by suggesting a Framework for Critical Numeracy for the classroom. The Framework could be used for planning and implementing instruction as well as for devising assessment. The video could also be the basis of professional learning workshops for Mathematics teachers.
Click here for transcript of the video
© DET 2007