Talking About Literacy, Literature and Language Online Symposium 2024

Monday 27 May – Monday 17 June

Being literate is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms through written, oral, visual and auditory. Active listening and a strong foundation of oral language is key to ongoing and lasting literacy learning. (EYLF v2.0 P 57)

Early childhood is a crucial time for the development of language and literacy skills. This popular online symposium explores language and literacy in depth. Join us as the presenters give us their expertise on this topic.

The symposium includes access to a series of 8 pre-recorded videos which will be available to view at any time over a 3-week period. Each video will be accompanied by a Reflection Guide which you can use to help facilitate team discussions about the video content.

The symposium videos include:

The Book Shelf

Presenter: Janet Robertson

Picture books take us into a magical world of fantasy and enliven stories of culture, friendship, family and adventure. There are also books that provoke children’s curiosity covering topics from nature to engineering.

This video explores the importance of literature in early childhood and how to choose and use the best of children’s books.

Emerging literacy

Presenter: Dr Leonie Arthur

A literacy rich environment supports children to develop knowledge of print and how it is used in everyday life. This video explores:

• Children’s emergent reading and writing.
• The importance of engaging with literacy in meaningful and authentic ways.
• How to model, scaffold and extend literacy experiences.
• Creation of an authentic print rich environment.

Language and literacy through storytelling – an interview with storyteller Jo Henwood

Presenter: Jo Henwood

Stories are a medium with which children are very familiar. Whether through dance, music, or the spoken word - storytelling is a crucial part of early childhood education and beyond. This video explores:

• How, through storytelling, we learn about relationships and humanity.
• Story narratives, character, plot and structure.
• How to create magic and wonder through body language, facial expressions, tone.

Technology, literacy and language development

Presenter: Laure Hislop

How can technology be used in meaningful ways to support children’s emerging language and literacy?  This question and more is explored in this video.

Connecting literacy and the arts

Presenter: Dr Gai Lindsay

The visual arts are an important language used to communicate, tell stories, and represent meaning.  Children are prolific users of this form of symbolism. In this video you will learn how to support children to represent their ideas, thinking and feelings through the visual arts.

Language rich environments

Presenter: Kirsty Liljegren

Speech, language and communication are critical aspects of children’s learning and development. These are tools that help us to develop relationships and communicate our needs. They also help enrich our life experiences, create memories, and think through problems. This video explores how we can construct early childhood environments that are rich in authentic language experiences.

Supporting children with English as an additional language

Presenter: FKA Children’s Services

Culture and identity are strongly linked to home language. It is therefore important that children are given the right to maintain their home language. This video delves into how to support children to learn an additional language while maintaining the culture and language of their family.

What happened to our old favourites? Picture books, tokenism and stereotypes

Presenter: KU Children’ Services

We often feel an emotional connection to books we considered classics. However, many of our old favourite children’s picture books have been brought into question as we become more conscious of stereotypes and tokenism. This video begins a conversation, delving into questions such as:

What do we do with our once treasured books?

Can we re-view these through a critical lens?

Can these books still be used as a teaching tool?

How do I decide whether a book is authentic, inclusive and suitable?

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers – Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it

National Quality Standard – QA 1 Educational program and practice