Middle Years Literacy Project

About the Middle Years Literacy Project

Focus research question for the project

Participating Schools

Resources

• The Sun-Herald and The Sydney Morning Herald newspapers
• Herald Education
• Priority Schools Programs
• Sydney Morning Herald online
• TaLe
• The Learning Federation

Outcomes identified by participating schools

• The project increased engagement in literacy. Students were excited and keen to take the newspapers home each week. Cabramatta PS
  
  
  
• Students have demonstrated an increase in engagement during literacy lessons due to the use of both newspapers and the interactive whiteboard to demonstrate literacy strategies. Cabramatta West PS
  
  
  
• Newspapers provided authentic model texts of specific text types, for example news reports, letters to editor, film reviews, recipes. Cabramatta HS
  
  
  
• The final work samples given to the students showed the students thinking more about punctuation and having a good go with trying to include it in their writing. Buninyong PS
  
  
  
• Although the focus was on complex sentences, students are also much more aware of simple and compound sentences. Dubbo PS
  
  
  
• Most students who took part in the project can now recall both global and social issues that are impacting upon Australia and in turn, on themselves. Students were actively engaged and enjoyed the various class assignments.
  Dubbo West PS
  
  
  
• Students have responded positively to the novelty of having newspapers in the classroom and they have been a motivator in engaging students in learning.
  Dubbo Secondary College, Delroy Campus
  
  
  

Teaching and Learning Activities