June 21 and I fly out of Australia heading for the School Library Assocation and their annual weekend conference being held this year at the University of Bath, UK, from Fri 23 – Sun 25 June. The program is entitled “If You’ve Got It, Flaunt It — Promoting School Libraries”.

Part of the SLA vision states “We believe that every pupil is entitled to effective school library provision”. I will be presenting two seminars on the topic:

“Learn to read, learn to succeed: developing literacy with Accelerated Reader”. The handout notes of the presentation are in the Resources link in this blog. The full presenation has lots of pictures that showed the kids in action – totally engrossed and loving the experience of reading!

The central premise of my presentation is that this particular program, unlike any other that I have come across, when used well, makes Library central to literacy and learning, above any other approach. No seperate reading program, no graded readers that sit in seperate boxes, no colour coding, nothing that creates a stigma. I hope to be able to share some of the experiences of teachers and librarians in Australian schools, and so help my British colleagues work out how best to use the program in their own schools.

The next port of call will be Lisbon, Portugal, 3-7th July for the annual conference of the International Assocation of School Librarianship. The theme of the conference this year is the Multiple Faces of Literacy. No presentation this time, as I will be involved with organisational things in my role as Vice President (Association Relations).