Not many people can say they have `chewed the fat’ with a world-renowned author, let alone a dyslexic one.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
But that is exactly what students from Cobram Primary School got to do as part of remote learning earlier this month.
Students heard from Australian author Jackie French, a household name for many Australians and author of books such as Diary of a Wombat, Hitlers Daughter and A Waltz for Matilda.
Year 4 and 5 teacher Bre Flanagan said about 20 students learning from home and 20 at school from Years 4, 5 and 6 took part in the Google meet.
“The kids love her books — we have heaps here, so the kids were going crazy,” she said.
“They were asking how she became a writer and there were a lot of wombat questions.”
Ms Flanagan said Ms French spoke about her experience of being a dyslexic author.
“The editors only picked up her first book because it was so messy,” she said.
“Only she can read her writing, normally she has heaps of spelling mistakes.
“Some of the kids were happy to know you can still be successful even though you struggle to read and write.”
Throughout the pandemic, teachers have been recording short videos for students to learn from on iPads, something Ms Flanagan said had been a success.
“It’s a different experience, but the kids really seem to engage with it,” she said.
“Everyone at the school managed to submit something.”
Ms Flanagan said once the students returned to school, instead of becoming an uncontrollable group of kids excited to see their friends again, they settled right back into the normal routine instantly.
“Straight away when they got in, they wanted to listen, learn, ask questions and get straight into it,” she said.
“We didn’t need to settle them down or anything.
“They just missed school so much they'd rather come back to normality.”
26°C