Month: May 2026

Kicking Goals with Stories

On Wednesday 27 May, Luna Roo the Kangaroo Baller by Adam Jackson and Adrian Lough, illustrated by Jake A. Minton, was read simultaneously in libraries, schools, early learning settings and homes across the country, uniting communities in a shared reading experience. National Simultaneous Storytime once again brought the joy of shared reading to life across Australia, delighting young readers nationwide. As one of the most anticipated literacy events on the calendar, NSS continues to highlight the powerful role that stories play in fostering connection, imagination and a lifelong love of reading.

Here at the library, we were excited to support this year’s celebration as our primary students came together to share in the reading of Luna Roo the Kangaroo Baller. Students were active participants throughout, enthusiastically calling out “You can do it!” each time Luna Roo’s name was mentioned and cheering a joyful “Woohoo!” during key match moments. This collective energy created a vibrant and engaging reading experience that truly captured the spirit of National Simultaneous Storytime.

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Following the story, our Year 5 and 6 students took part in a creative and engaging activity, designing their own football jerseys inspired by Luna Roo’s passion for the game. This hands on experience provided a fun and meaningful way for students to connect with the text, express their creativity and celebrate the excitement and teamwork at the heart of the story. The library also supported NSS with themed bookmarks and a wonderful display of soccer reads, offering plenty of options for our budding fans to continue their reading beyond the event.

Events such as NSS not only promote literacy but also affirm the importance of storytelling as a communal act, one that brings people together and nurtures empathy, identity and belonging. We hope that our students thoroughly enjoyed meeting Luna Roo and that the accompanying activities enhanced their experience of this heartwarming and energetic story. National Simultaneous Storytime remains a powerful reminder that when we read together, we grow together.

From Words to Understanding: Five Years of Vocabulary, Inquiry and Impact

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Last week I had the privilege of presenting at the National Education Summit here in Brisbane, sharing a body of work that has evolved over the past five years, three schools and two states. What began in 2021 as a response to disrupted learning during Covid lockdowns has since developed into a sustained, evidence informed approach to vocabulary instruction, grounded in collaboration, inquiry and the role of the teacher librarian.

In the early stages of this work, my fellow teacher librarians and I were grappling with a shared challenge. Students were returning to classrooms with uneven access to the curriculum, and many lacked the language needed to engage meaningfully with content. We began asking a simple but powerful question. How do we support students to connect with learning at their point of access? The answer, we found, lay in vocabulary.

Vocabulary is more than word knowledge. It is the foundation for deeper thinking, richer comprehension and academic success across all learning areas. Drawing on Vygotsky’s understanding of learning as a social process, this work has always prioritised scaffolded, collaborative learning experiences where language is explicitly taught, modelled and applied. Halliday’s theory of language as a social semiotic further reinforced the importance of teaching students how language works within different disciplines, enabling them to access and produce increasingly complex texts.

Central to my approach is the belief that vocabulary must be taught explicitly before students are asked to engage in close reading or complex content. This thinking is informed by the cognitive reading model of Stahl & McKenna, as well as Scarborough’s Reading Rope, both of which highlight the interdependence of language comprehension and word knowledge in skilled reading. When students do not understand key terms, comprehension falters. When they do, learning accelerates.

In practice, this begins with carefully curated text sets. By introducing students to genre based texts at appropriate Lexile levels, they encounter Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabulary in context. This is particularly powerful in subjects such as science, health and the humanities, where disciplinary language can be abstract and highly specific. Seeing vocabulary embedded within authentic texts allows students to connect meaning to purpose, rather than encountering words in isolation.

From here, explicit strategies such as the semantic mapping and the Frayer Model are used to connect schemas and deepen understanding. This is especially effective for terms that students commonly misunderstand or struggle to define, which is often the case in scientific contexts. By unpacking definitions, characteristics, examples and non examples, students build a more nuanced and transferable understanding of key concepts.

Throughout this process, resource based learning has been essential. The library is not simply a place where resources are housed, but a dynamic space where literacy and learning are designed in partnership with teachers. As a teacher librarian, I have worked closely with colleagues to co plan units that embed vocabulary instruction within inquiry based learning. Together, we create literacy rich environments where students engage with ideas, language and content in meaningful ways.

What has been most powerful is seeing the cumulative impact of this work. When vocabulary is positioned as a cornerstone of learning, students become more confident readers, more precise thinkers and more capable communicators. They are better equipped to navigate complex texts, engage in disciplinary thinking and articulate their understanding.

Presenting at the Summit this year was an opportunity to reflect on this journey and to share practical, adaptable strategies with other educators. It also reinforced the critical role that teacher librarians play in leading literacy across the curriculum. Through curation, collaboration and intentional teaching, libraries can drive approaches that ensure all students have access to the language of learning.

This work continues to evolve, but the core principle remains unchanged. If we want students to think deeply and learn effectively, we must first give them the words.

Why Science Fiction Belongs at the Heart of a Literacy‑Led Library Program

As a teacher librarian, my work is grounded in a simple but firm belief: literacy and literature must remain at the centre of learning. That does not mean avoiding complexity. It means choosing texts and genres that allow students to encounter complexity in ways that are humane, accessible and developmentally appropriate. Science fiction, often misunderstood as niche or escapist, is one of the most effective literary tools we have to do exactly that.

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Science fiction offers students a way to think without feeling interrogated. It creates space for ideas to be explored rather than defended. When students encounter ethical dilemmas, social questions or scientific possibilities through story, the focus shifts from right answers to thoughtful engagement. The speculative distance of science fiction allows students to examine power, responsibility, identity and change without the pressure of personal disclosure or immediate real‑world positioning. This is not avoidance, it is scaffolding.

From a literacy perspective, science fiction is particularly powerful for vocabulary development. Scientific, technical and abstract concepts are embedded within narrative, image and character rather than presented as isolated definitions to be memorised. Students meet words repeatedly, across contexts, wrapped in story. This kind of exposure builds depth of understanding, not just surface recognition. It is vocabulary acquisition without confrontation, learning without the spike of anxiety that can come with academic language when it is taught in isolation.

Narratives such as novels and picture books sit at the heart of this work, especially when introducing complex ideas. No one is afraid of a story! Narratives disarm resistance, invite curiosity and slow the reading process in productive ways. A well‑chosen science fiction narrative can introduce abstract ideas such as time, artificial intelligence, environmental collapse or ethical choice without signalling to students that something “difficult” is coming. In particular, science fiction picture books promote the use of imager to carry meaning alongside words, allowing students to construct understanding through multiple pathways. This multimodal entry point is particularly powerful for reluctant readers, EALD students and those who have not yet built confidence as academic learners.

Science fiction has always played a role in shaping how societies imagine the future. Long before deep‑sea exploration or space travel became reality, writers were exploring these possibilities through fiction. That imaginative work mattered. It still does. When students read science fiction, they are not just consuming stories about the future, they are learning how to think about possibility, consequence and change. They practise asking “what if” and “what next?”, questions that sit at the core of critical literacy.

In the library, science fiction becomes a bridge between disciplines. It allows science, ethics, language and social understanding to sit alongside one another rather than compete for space. This aligns deeply with socio‑cultural theories of learning that emphasise language, context and dialogue as central to meaning‑making. Stories give students a shared reference point from which rich conversation can grow. They provide a common text that supports talk, questioning and interpretation, all essential elements of strong literacy practice.

Importantly, science fiction asks students to rethink social dilemmas rather than simply react to them. By following characters through imagined futures, students can explore moral uncertainty, empathise with perspectives unlike their own and consider the long‑term impact of human decisions. This builds ethical imagination alongside analytical skill. It teaches students that thinking deeply is more valuable than answering quickly.

For me, promoting science fiction is not about chasing trends or genre enthusiasm. It is about literacy leadership. It is about selecting texts that honour imagination while strengthening language, that support curiosity without sacrificing rigour. Science fiction does not sit on the edges of serious reading. In a literacy‑led library, it belongs at the centre.

And sometimes, the most powerful way to begin that journey is with a story.

References.

BookTrust. (n.d.). Why children’s science fiction is so important. https://www.booktrust.org.uk/resources/find-resources/why-childrens-science-fiction-is-so-important/

Diyora, S., & Abduramanova, D. (2024). The role of science fiction in enhancing critical thinking and ethical imagination in education. ASEAN Journal of Science and Engineering Education, 4(3), 211–216. https://doi.org/10.17509/ajsee.v4i3.82480

Eason, A. (2024, February 27). The psychological benefits of science fiction. https://adam-eason.com/the-psychological-benefits-of-science-fiction/

Jones, E. (2020, May 24). Sci‑fi and fantasy build mental resiliency in young readers. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/science-fiction-builds-mental-resiliency-young-readers/

Halliday, M. A. K., & Hasan, R. (1989). Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard University Press.