Elisabeth Champion
Mount Gambier residents will start to see a catchy new advertisement on TV in the coming days, with the launch of the Words Grow Minds campaign in Mount Gambier on Sunday.
Words Grow Minds is a Raising Literacy Australia campaign that encourages parents to play, sing and read to their child.
Mount Gambier will be the first to see the campaign and depending on the success and outcomes of the program, it will be rolled out more broadly.
Chief executive Elizabeth David said Mount Gambier was chosen to launch the campaign due to poor literacy rates among children in South Australia.
“It (Mount Gambier) has a significant issue with disadvantaged families and also literacy rates in the state,” she said.
“We’re able to geofence this pilot in the South East, as we will do in the Whyalla region as well, and this enables us to give the government a really good understanding of the impact we can make through this campaign.
“So we really ask the parents to engage in this as well as children – we think the television commercial will work in children’s minds as well.”
The campaign seeks to encourage parents to be involved in their child’s literacy.
Mrs Davis said parents reading and singing to their child has a profound impact on their literacy later in life.
“The reason we are undertaking this campaign is that most people wouldn’t recognise the child’s brain is 85 per cent developed by the age of three.
“So the impact that you can make in the first 1000 days of a child’s life are vital in ensuring that your child has the full potential to develop and to choose whatever they want to do in life.
“So this campaign is to ensure that we continually develop a child’s brain to enable it to be fully able to be educated by the age of five.”
The campaign is put together by government organisations, not-for-profits and community organisations.
Chair of Early Years Taskforce Kate Ellis encouraged parents to get involved in the campaign.
“It’s all based on evidence, it’s all based on research, we’ve worked with so many different organisations to have input and to get everyone on the same page,” she said.
“There’s now a website that’s been set up, but importantly, there’s also a closed Facebook group so that parents can share, ‘this is what I did with my child that worked really well’, or service providers can share when there’s playgroups coming up, or when there is a Storytime session.
“Hopefully, we can set up an online community as well to help each other out because there’s a reason that the saying has been around for so long that it takes a village to raise a child.
“Let’s make sure that we strengthen our village at the same time.”
The taskforce will monitor the outcomes of the campaign, in the hopes they will see an increase in Child and Family Health visits, increased participation in Storytime and Playgroups, and increased awareness around the importance of early childhood in the general community.
Learn more aboutthe program at wordsgrowminds.com.au
