Greater Shepparton City Council, Victoria, Best Start Early Years program has launched two locally developed multilingual children’s books, as part of the Greater Shepparton Book Bag Program.
The Book Bag Program sees parents gifted a collection of items by Maternal and Child Health Nurses at their child’s 4-week, 8-month, 18-month and 3.5-year ages and stages check, to promote the benefits of reading from a young age.
The Book Bags include a story book, a parent information booklet, a nursery rhyme sheet, an activity sheet and library membership information and service information.
The two new books launched by Council are 8-month and 18-month books.
The books include photos of local families and attractions and include nine locally spoken community languages; Yorta Yorta, Arabic, Dari, Mandarin, Persian, Punjabi, Swahili, Turkish and English.
The 8-month book is called ‘At Home’, and touches on the many different things children and their families can do at home.
The 18-month book is called ‘Places We Go’ and explores places, attractions or services across Greater Shepparton such as playgrounds, walking tracks and libraries that families can experience.
Director Community, Kaye Thomson, said, “The Early Years Language Workgroup aim to promote and encourage families to be reading, talking, singing and playing with their children every day from birth, to ensure children develop the foundation language and literacy skills they need to thrive.
“The Book Bag Program is just one initiative to support this message, and the multilingual books are a wonderful addition to the program.
“The multilingual books celebrate the wonderful diverse community we have here in Greater Shepparton.”
