Practical Ways to Engage Reluctant Readers
The first SLANSW online meet-up for 2025 will focus on Practical Ways to Engage Reluctant Readers. Three inspiring presenters; Allison Tait, Jade Arnold and Amanda Craig will share their practical knowledge and participants will leave this session with lots of strategies and examples to implement in their school. This topic is relevant for primary and secondary Teacher Librarians and Library staff.
About Allison Tait
Allison Tait (A. L. Tait) is the internationally published, bestselling author of nine middle-grade novels, including The Mapmaker Chronicles, The Ateban Cipher novels, Maven & Reeve Mysteries and ‘The First Summer of Callie McGee’, which was longlisted for the 2024 Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award. Her tenth novel, ‘Willow Bright’s Secret Plot’, is coming in 2025.
Allison teaches creative writing for children at the Australian Writers’ Centre and is the co-host of the top-rating Your Kid’s Next Read podcast. Find out more at allisontait.com
About Jade Arnold
Jade started her teaching career as an English and History teacher but retrained as a Teacher Librarian after seeing the devastating impact the loss of her school’s library to fire had on her students. She is an avid reader of YA fiction and is passionate about engaging teenagers in reading for leisure. Jade's current position is the NSW Premier’s Program Officer – Reading and Spelling, which involves overseeing the Premier's Reading Challenge and Premier's Spelling Bee.
About Amanda Craig
Amanda Craig is a passionate Teacher Librarian working at Telarah Public School. She has worked in various roles in her 25 year career, doing everything from preschool, Early Intervention, primary, High School and TAFE but found her true love when becoming a TL 14 years ago. Amanda has an extensive background in visual arts, where she completed her Honours and started her teaching career as a High School Visual Arts teacher. Her love of visual arts influences her teaching and learning and is why she is passionate about picture books.
Amanda is an active member of her local TL networking group MASLA and has been a MANTLE committee member since 2015, currently serving as Treasurer. She has presented sessions on advocating for the TL position and the library and has built a strong social media community through her school library Instagram page @telarahpslibrary
Suggested Standards addressed by this Online Meet-up
2.1.2 Apply knowledge of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area to develop engaging teaching activities.
6.2.2 Participate in learning to update knowledge and practice targeted to professional needs and school and/or system priorities.
6.3.2 Contribute to collegial discussions and apply constructive feedback from colleagues to improve professional knowledge and practice.
7.4.2 Participate in professional and community networks and forums to broaden knowledge and improve practice.
Certificate of participation available via request to: info@slansw.net.au
About SLANSW Online Meet-Ups
The one-hour meet-ups take place in SLANSW's Zoom Conference Room and include a presentation from a guest speaker, with facilitated discussion between participants. We aim to include Q&A time as a wrap-up of each online meetup.
A maximum of 100 places are available for each meet-up, so get your registrations in ASAP.
Participation in SLANSW online meet-ups is at no cost to members. Non-members may access the meet-ups for $45 per session.
The one-hour meet-up takes place in SLANSW's Zoom conference room.
Those who register for this event will receive an email within 24 hours before the event, with details to access this online session.