Using play to develop oral literacy

St John’s Primary Riverstone, Early Stage One (Kindergarten) teachers are utilising imaginative play as a way to engage their students in oral literacy.

With talk being the foundation for thought and understanding in reading and writing, students are participating in puppet play and fancy dress to develop their talking, listening and cooperative skills.

“We know that ‘reading and writing floats on a sea of talk’,” teacher Charlene Saliba said. “We have been doing some professional learning to engage our students and develop their skills in this area moving from imagining, to inner speech, to inner speaking, to speech.”

“Students use the puppets to create a story with their group and then share it with an audience,” she said. “They also love using the Chatterpix app on the iPads to take photos and record their voices, pretending they are the characters in the photo.”

Ms Saliba said that is a whole school focus in the development of oral literacy at St John’s where we have created a specific learning intent and success criteria based on curriculum outcomes to ensure students understand and are aware of the skills they are developing through play.

Written By

St John's Primary School Riverstone
www.stjohnsriverstone.catholic.edu.au

18 Aug 2025
From Facebook
Following the book week parade, we had so much fun visiting the classrooms to read the shortlisted books. Each class had such inspiring displays! We had such a fun day, and look forward to the rest of our book week events! 🥰😀 Take a look at our awesome classes and their creative displays! 👏

18 Aug 2025
From Facebook
Today we had so much fun celebrating book week! 📚 We kicked off our week with our book parade! 🤩 We always have so much fun showing off our great costumes- well done to all our families for such creative and adventurous costumes! 👏