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Literacy Empowerment Project: Literacy Backpack Program

Teacher guide Literacy Empowerment Project: Literacy Backpack Program

TLF ID S7087

This teacher resource is about the Literacy Backpack Program established in 16 remote school campuses in the Katherine region of the Northern Territory. The program supplies books and magazines to schools and homes in the region as part of a levelled reading program and is designed to foster a community approach to reading. The resource describes how the program worked in classrooms and the part played by the backpacks themselves, book awards and vouchers, and creative workshops with some of the authors. The resource discusses the outcomes achieved and provides references and links to relevant readings.

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Educational details

Educational value
  • This resource is of value in supporting the reading component of the English curriculum area and its application in the context of student diversity. It describes the Literacy Backpack Program in some detail and examines its success for the Aboriginal students involved. Standard Australian English is an additional language or dialect for all the students involved, with many of the students also experiencing multiple learning difficulties. The resource discusses the lessons learned from the program as well as its next steps.
  • This resource is useful in describing the highly positive effects of bringing extensive numbers of books and magazines into the communities' schools and homes. Although having some books may well be better than no books, the resource highlights the fundamental importance of the reading materials being relevant and part of a levelled program so that readers can bridge from the known to the unknown.
Year level

F; 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10

Topics Reading Books Teaching methods (Reading) Aboriginal students
Learning area
  • English

Other details

Contributors
  • Contributor
  • Name: Education Services Australia
  • Organization: Education Services Australia
  • Description: Data manager
  • Copyright Holder
  • Name: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Organization: Commonwealth of Australia
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.australia.gov.au
  • Publisher
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organization: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Description: Publisher
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: http://www.esa.edu.au
  • Resource metadata contributed by
  • Name: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Organisation: Education Services Australia Ltd
  • Address: AUSTRALIA
  • URL: www.esa.edu.au
Access profile
  • Generic
Learning Resource Type
  • Online
  • Text
Rights
  • © 2014 Commonwealth of Australia, unless otherwise indicated. This material is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licence (CC BY-SA 3.0 AU) unless otherwise indicated. You may distribute, remix and build upon this material, provided that you include the acknowledgement '© Commonwealth of Australia 2014' and license under the same terms any new creations you have based on the material.