Each May, many organizations and thousands of people celebrate National Families Week. https://nfw.org.au/

This annual event (held 12-18 May in 2025) highlights and promotes the important role that families have in Australian society, particularly in nurturing and educating our children.

This year in our Wilston school community, let’s celebrate by focussing on the positive benefits and joyful experiences of reading together! It is widely accepted that parents reading to and with their children (even after they learn to read themselves) is a wonderful way to bond and share the love of language and literature.  

Research shows that there are a multitude of other benefits of reading to children including:

• Building knowledge about phonics and language
• Expanding general and topic-specific knowledge
• Growing listening skills and attention span
• Increasing exposure to new vocabulary used in context
• Developing empathy, values and life lessons

Join in the fun of family reading in May and enter our library competition:

Take a creative photo of some family members reading together and email it to Mrs Burgess smbur1@eq.edu.au by 18 May with a short caption (eg “Our favourite bedtime story is…” or “the Jones family loved reading….)

All submissions will go on display in the library and be entered in a lucky prize draw. You could win a family book voucher to get some lovely new books in our Book Club Issue 4!

Thank you to all the families who have shared their favourite reading moments.

In May, let’s build in more family time to read together!