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.

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

23 Sep 2026
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18 Sep 2026
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On Monday, seven of our Year 6 students represented our school at the Socktober launch and soccer gala day held by Catholic Mission, CSPD and the Wanderers soccer club. They had a great day of playing soccer with other schools in the diocese. They also spent some time learning about the country of Malawi and difficulties faced by many of its citizens. The students also learnt how to make soccer balls out of recycled materials. This year, Catholic Mission is raising funds to build a school in Malawi to provide education to 800 students. St John’s will be supporting Catholic Mission’s appeal early next term with a fundraising initiative led by the Year 6 students who attended the Socktober Gala day and other volunteers from our Mini Vinnie’s team. If you would like to contribute to our school fundraising page earlier, please click on this link. https://www.socktober.org.au/fundraisers/stjohnsriverstone/socktober-2026 Keep a look out for our Term 4 Faith In Action initiatives which we will be sharing shortly. Thank you for supporting our fundraising efforts for Catholic Mission and the Socktober appeal.