Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins champions kids’ literacy

No stranger to breaking records, Australian cricket captain Pat Cummins weighed in on the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee this week after the national spelling challenge broke all previous records for student, teacher and school registrations.

With over 74,500 students now registered by over 3000 teachers at nearly 1400 schools, Cummins said his teacher mum gave him a lifelong belief in the power of literacy skills.

When he and wife Becky welcomed their first child, son Albie in 2021, Cummins became a UNICEF Australia Ambassador* because being a father “changed everything”.

“Now as our family grows (with the birth of daughter Edith in February), so does my sense of responsibility to make sure we are building the right foundations for both of our children,” he said.

The legendary fast bowler said challenges like the PM’s Spelling Bee “make learning exciting by turning it into a fun and fast-paced game”.

“The best part is that kids don’t even realise how much they’re taking in while they play,” he said. “So, they’re getting something good for them, which is spelling and literacy, but in a way they can enjoy.”

With Albie nearly four and Edith already six months’ old, Cummins said children’s early years were “when their little minds are taking in the world around them and shaping the rest of their lives”.

“It’s in these years where education begins, with every bedtime story we read to them, every curious question and every proud recital of the alphabet,” Cummins said.

Education was such a strong force in the Cummins family thanks to his mum’s job, so the cricketer “grew up understanding how powerful it can be.”

With adulthood came the realisation that many children were not given that same chances in life. Travels through famously cricket-mad India went from Cummins simply enjoying being a superstar of the game to visiting UNICEF programs for children.

“I’ve seen the barriers that still stand in the way of learning – such as poverty*, or just the fact of being a girl,” he said.

“In Hyderabad, I visited schools where initiatives are underway to help keep girls in education, giving them the skills but also the confidence to set up their futures. Because the reality for these girls in India is that over half will have left school before Year 10.

“I saw these young minds diving into creative problem-solving, STEM*, even 3D printing* – their imagination alive, and their enthusiasm contagious.”

But complex subjects, he said, would be impossible without literacy.

“Reading opens the doors to knowledge – letting children understand new ideas, be able to express them and find ways to make sense of a range of topics,” he said.

“It’s the basis for a lifetime of learning and without it, can leave other forms of education out of reach.”

The Hyderabad experience really brought home to him how important foundation literacy was for all Australian kids.

“Without it, they aren’t given the chance to discover their full potential,” Cummins said. “It’s something we can’t afford to ignore.”

With his Howzat Pat children’s book series out now, Cummins said he grew up loving adventures in books just as much as he loved playing backyard cricket with his brothers.

“Working on (Howzat Pat) … I want to encourage Albie and Edi, like my parents encouraged me, to have that same love of sport, curiosity and reading all at once – and I hope the books encourage the same thing for all kids across the country.”

With the PM’s Spelling Bee “making the learning part of the everyday fun”, Cummins said combining education with play was “a huge win – no matter what the result is”.

“As a parent myself, I know how powerful this kind of learning can be,” he said. “You can see their curiosity, they’re building their confidence, and it also gives them a real sense of achievement.”

UNICEF Australia‘s Katie Maskiell said it went further than reading and writing being the building blocks of education – they’re every child’s right.

“If a child can learn to read and write, they are allowed curiosity, confidence and a voice,” she said. “Every minute spent learning brings a child closer to a brighter future, and every child deserves that chance, no matter what.”

UNICEF currently works in 190 countries creating access to education in places hard for most kids in Australia to even imagine.

All over the world, there are millions of kids with big dreams just like you live in poverty and war zones, amid floods and earthquakes, without enough food or drinking water, or in places where simply being a girl means no classroom access.

“UNICEF knows education is a beacon* of hope for these children,” Ms Maskiell said.

Run by free classroom literacy resource Kids News, registrations and the school round of the Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee close at 5pm AEST on Friday 22 August. Visit spelling-bee.com.au, kidsnews.com.au

For more information and to support UNICEF’s programs for children, visit unicef.org.au

ABOUT THE BEE

• The Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee is a free, online competition for students in Years 3-8.
• Students compete at their school in three levels: Green level for Years 3-4, Orange level for Years 5-6 and Red level for Years 7-8.
• They get 30 randomly selected words from their competition level and have 25 seconds to type each answer. The students with the most correct words in the fastest time progress to finals.
• Teachers can register their students until August 22, when the school round ends.
• State and territory finals will be held September 1-5 and the national finals on September 10-11.
• The national champion in each age group wins a trip to Canberra to meet the Prime Minister, an iPad, HarperCollins book pack and a $1000 voucher for their school.

Details: kidsnews.com.au, spelling-bee.com.au

POLL

GLOSSARY

• ambassador: an important person who represents his or her country, sport or an organisation and its activities, which are often charitable but can be for payment
• STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
• 3D printing: a very cool method of creating objects layer-by-layer using computer-created designs, which range from toys and jewellery to boats and even houses
• poverty: not having enough money or materials to meet basic needs like food, shelter and clothing
• beacon: a bright guiding light, a light or fire in a place that is easy to see, such as on the top of a hill, that sends a visible signal

EXTRA READING

Literacy gifts comics the last laugh

Spelling skills rev kids’ engines

Where are our Bee champs now?

QUICK QUIZ

1. What was Pat Cummins’ mum’s job when he was a kid?
2. How many students, teachers and schools have registered in the PM’s Spelling Bee so far?
3. What is the name of Pat Cummins’ children’s book series?
4. What is every child’s right, according to UNICEF Australia‘s Katie Maskiell?
5. How many countries does UNICEF operate in delivering programs to children?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
Spread the word
Using ideas from the article, create a poster to communicate the importance of early literacy skills. The poster should contain a slogan that is catchy and powerful, linking literacy skills to opportunity and imagination. The poster should have relevant, eye-catching visuals.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English; Visual Arts

Extension
Interview some friends, teachers or family members to find out about their earliest memories of learning to read or write. Perhaps they remember a favourite bedtime story or nursery rhyme from childhood. Or maybe there was a moment when they first felt proud of a story they wrote.

Compare your notes with classmates. Are there any common themes you can identify among the experiences that were shared?

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

VCOP ACTIVITY
Conjunctions
Conjunctions are important in connecting ideas in a text and improving its flow. They help to join sentences, clauses or phrases to create a coherent and meaningful text.

Coordinating conjunctions are used to connect equal ideas or phrases - for example: and, but, or, so, yet, nor.

Subordinating conjunctions are connecting words or phrases that join a subordinating clause to the main idea. They provide additional information about the main idea - for example: because, although, while, when, if, since, until.

Complete at least two activities from the choices below:
Read the news article carefully and highlight all the conjunctions used in the text.

Write down the conjunctions you found and the words or phrases they connect.

Identify the type of conjunction used (coordinating conjunctions or subordinating conjunctions).

Explain the role of conjunctions in connecting ideas and improving the flow of a text.

Write a short paragraph about something you found interesting in the article. Challenge yourself to re-use three conjunctions from the text. Can you up-level them to a higher level conjunction? Does it make the sentence better or harder to read? (Sometimes, the basic conjunction is the best choice).