Paint the Town REaD

                    This project provided an innovative literacy program developed to focus on enhancing social connections and literacy skills. The programs supported families and encouraged them to read to children from birth.
                

About

The Rural City of Murray Bridge worked with local champions and partners to launch a ‘Paint the Town REaD’ literacy program. The program’s mascot (a Reading Egg) has been visiting the local kindergartens, children's centres, and library to ensure children "Talk, Read, Sing, Rhyme and Play" with it every day.

Background

This project is part of a nationwide early literacy community program which encourages communities to read, talk, sing and play with children from birth, helping develop the skills they need for reading and writing.

This project responded to Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) data for Murray Bridge which showed 11.8% of children were considered developmentally vulnerable in the area of language and cognitive skills. This was a significant increase compared to previous years.

Outcomes

This project was successful at introducing children aged 0 to 5 years to the enjoyment of reading, rhymes, singing, and hearing different words. It was also able to introduce to parents/carers the importance of children’s relationships with their parents and carers for support of brain development, and learning.

A total of 1,200 young children participated in this program over 30 events.

The council has been able to build strong connections with local organisations and educators. Relationships with these organisations will continue after this project through further events and other early learning ideas.

This has been a valuable opportunity for council to form strong foundations with support agencies, early learning facilities and the wider community. It has been able to strengthen the work council was already doing to support learning in preschool aged children.