Indigenous Literacy Day

PLD is working to preserve Indigenous languages through the creation of region specific resources. For over 10 years, PLD  has worked with a range of Indigenous communities for over ten years, including developing a range of online courses to support the literacy requirements of Indigenous communities. You can read more about PLD’s work within remote schools from the ‘Speech Pathology Australia’ case study .

More recently (and to coincide with National Indigenous Literacy Day), PLD has launched an initiative to partner with remote schools to develop sets of local language resources. There are over 200 indigenous languages and due to the sheer number of languages, schools have limited charts, cards and displays that recognise the local language base that students bring to schools. .

“By schools providing a collection of core words along with their local translations, this enables us to produce a set of resources which have been designed for each specific region. The resources will assist teaching staff to reinforce the local language while also providing environmental print specific to the region.”

The response has already been positive. With the help of local community leaders, schools with a high indigenous student population are able to supply PLD with a list of vocabulary items paired with their local language translation. The PLD designers then create a local language cards and charts for use within the school. Schools interested in the creation of language resources (free of charge) can find more information HERE

As part of Indigenous Literacy Day 2017, PLD also wants to highlight the importance of those working within Indigenous communities to receive specialist training and programs to work towards bridging the gap. PLD has designed a range of online courses which provide quality training, without the need to travel to a regional or capital city. For more information click here 

Each of the short courses are based upon PLD’s structured synthetic phonics approach which is recognised on the AUSPELD list of recommended programs.