Welcome to 2023 and to a couple of changes in the Shalom College libraries. The adoption of a new digital textbook platform will help the move of heavy texts out of school bags and back on shelves. Of course, digital text book provision is not new but after a lot of ground work and a couple of minor hiccups, the new platform from Readcloud should promote this paradigm shift from the physical to continue in a meaningful and effective manner.

Ms Eizema will be primarily located in the Goondeel (Senior) library overseeing all things digital, digitised and archival as she continues to scan Brother Rochford’s extensive photographic history of Shalom College as we creep closer to our 40^th year in 2024.

As we farewell Mrs Kim Toll who has moved over to assist in Pathways, the Beerarlem (Junior) library introduces two new staff members Mrs Fleur Wooldridge and Miss Taila Saint. Mrs Wooldridge’s friendly face will be a regular feature at the circulation desk, but she will also take care of our special events such as the up-coming Somerset Storyfest Writers’ Festival. Miss Saint has been given a role that meets her aspirations to become a teacher and her desire to continue working with the students in CSB as she did in 2022 as a participant of the gap-year program. She will act in a student literacy enrichment position that is a collaborative library-CSB program that will support the literacy of our youngest students.

At this point it is important to consider that repetitive reading stimulates physical changes in the brain as it forges new connections and fortifies the neural pathways, specifically in the areas of reading. This helps less developed readers to encourage brain activity patterns that resemble those of stronger readers. As brain plasticity increases and patterns change, significant improvements for word processing, decoding, reading comprehension and language functions will be seen.

Neuroscientist Maximilian Riesenhuber focussed his studies on a tiny area of the brain involved in recognising words. This is known as the visual word form area (VWFA) and is located on the surface of the brain behind the left ear and is the area also responsible for the recognition of faces. As literacy progresses the VWFA is co-opted for ‘word recognition’, and as we become more proficient we accumulate a visual dictionary. Neuroscientific models assert that although our language control becomes a case of visual recognition, the vehicle of sound is still vital in building the cadence and ‘melody’ of our language cognition … reading to our young remains a valuable supplementary activity even after visual recognition is in full development.

it’s never too late to help a struggling reader to remap his or her brain to become a more successful reader.