Glenora District High School students’ trip to Fullers bookstore

On Wednesday the 20^th March, students from Grade 3/4 at Glenora District High School travelled to Fullers bookstore in Collins Street, Hobart. The purpose of the excursion was to expose students to a range of texts in a different environment, listen to a story, participate in a reading activity, and receive a general overview of how a bookstore operates. Also, many students had never been to a bookstore and they wanted to see the place where their teacher buys armloads of books.

Jen kindly spent an hour with the students showing them some of the latest children’s book releases, reading them excerpts from several books and questioning the students about the books they are reading. The students were given forms to become members of Fullers Ferrets, a free children’s book group.

While the students at Glenora have access to a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction texts in our school library, seeing Fullers’ 10,000 titles arranged for different audiences and genres has motivated many students to read a greater range of texts.  The outing had the desired effect of encouraging students’ engagement in their reading through increased participation in our Home Reader program. Five students have attained their certificates for twenty-five nights of reading since the excursion.

The students really enjoyed the excursion. They browsed the titles and merchandise with nearly half the students making purchases. They also enjoyed a chocolate milkshake from the Fullers Café. The student visits, organised by Fullers, are a wonderful activity. Thank you very much Jen and the other staff at Fullers.

Helen Thomsett