Collaboration with Dr Lorraine Hammond

Parents often ask how they can help their children learn to read; and it’s no wonder that they’re interested in this essential skill.

Dr Lorraine Hammond, leading educational expert shared her pearls of wisdom on ‘How the brain learns to read, the best way to teach it and how you can help at home,’ with close to 70 people in attendance from our Corpus Christi Parish Schools: St Francis of Assisi, Holy Family and Holy Family ELC, McKillop Catholic College and St Clare of Assisi. Lorraine has worked and researched in the area of early literacy, high impact instructional strategies, including explicit teaching and learning difficulties since 1990.

It may have been cold outside, however, the hot topic in discussion surrounded the many simple teaching and support strategies that parents can ‘do’ at home, to continue to help their child/ren to develop phonemic awareness, build vocabulary, find language patterns, identify sentence structures and transition from learning to read to reading to learn. I will share Dr Lorraine’s transcript of the evening which will be made available later next week.

We received significant positive feedback from many of our SCA Parents in attendance. As a result, we will host another session, early next semester with Jordan O’Sullivan, Teacher and Director of Shaping Minds. Jordan’s expertise is matched only by his willingness to share it. With an innate interest in Cognitive Science and research in Education, he endorses practices that are supported by evidence. Jordan has led curriculum and instructional innovations as a teacher and school administrator. He has accomplished what many set out to do, but only few attain… which is to achieve a significant and lasting impact on improving student outcomes. He is a master at finding ways to help students truly learn and will share a conversation with our community around Mathematics. Stay tuned for more information.

Jo Reed

Assistant Principal (Acting)