Blog

An inquisitive little girl enjoys a one-on-one impromptu reading session with Honey Ant Readers’ Jo Relic in her own beautiful community of Kiwirrkurra, WA – empowered by her knowledge of the countryside and characters in the Honey Ant Readers, which reflect her own world.

There’s no measure to what can be learnt using a HAR tape-measure! Margaret and a local artist having fun experimenting with numbers, sizes, lengths and widths – and language –  in the Women’s Art Centre in Kiwirrkurra WA.

In the middle of the Gibson Desert, WA, is an inspiring little school where the students’ country, language and culture are respected and paramount to their learning. Life on the land is integrated with their daily lives, and understood by the teachers at Kiwirrkurra School. We (Margaret James and Joe Relic, from the Honey Ant…

We always enjoy sharing our ideas with the community, and ensuring that they feel part of what we are doing in their schools. On this trip to the extraordinary, very remote community of  Kiwirrkurra, in WA, we showed them our new interactive iBooks which replicate our hard copy Honey Ant Readers Activity Books. Being amongst…

Kiwirrkurra, located 22°49’03.4″S 127°45’58.8″E, is one of the most remote communities in the world. The first delight on stepping out of the mail plane onto the red airstrip, is inhaling deep breaths of the clear, fresh air! A dot from the air, but magnificent on the ground, the community is situated in the open, sparsely…

Honey Ant Readers’ Margaret James was thrilled to meet the dynamic and innovative Denyse Ritchie  from THRASS at the AATE/ALEA conference in Adelaide. Both Denyse and Margaret, always prepared to think and ‘do’ outside the box as long as it benefits children’s literacy learning  –  enjoyed sharing new ideas, and past experiences.

Central Arrernte cultural Elder, Benedict Stevens, and Honey Ant Readers Margaret James, had fun presenting a workshop on how a deeper knowledge of student’s language and culture can positively assist teacher’s teaching – in turn, enhancing the learning experience for the students  – at the dynamic Australian Association for the Teaching of English and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association National…

Central Arrernte Cultural Elder, Benedict Stevens, discussing with passionate teacher, Danielle Calleja of La Salle College in Perth, why he believes it is important for teachers to understand their students linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and how this can help the students to adapt to the new, and often foreign, school environment. Benedict co-presented at the…

Congratulations to Dr Chris Sarra on his well-deserved award last night. Dr Sarra had this to say about HARs: “Engaging children in reading can be a complex and difficult process. This can be even more complex where children speak a language other than English, and come from a background that is vastly different to other…