This Wednesday 4 September, celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ stories, cultures, and languages through Indigenous Literacy Day.

Indigenous Literacy Day is an annual day of celebration produced and presented by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) in collaboration with the Sydney Opera House.

This year’s theme is ‘Be A Proud Voice for Country’. To mark the day, the ILF has produced a film taking viewers into three Aboriginal Communities to learn about their unique stories, languages and cultures, as well as a livestream event at the Sydney Opera House.

Literacy skills have a strong relationship with reading for pleasure – with research showing positive links between reading attainment and enjoyment in reading. The latest NAPLAN results show that First Nations students’ results are far behind non-Indigenous in critical areas of reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation.

In remote Communities across Australia there is often no infrastructure such as libraries or bookstores. Access to reading material is extremely limited and this impacts the achievements of Indigenous children.

The work of the ILF seeks to ensure access to quality literacy resources, including books in First Languages, publishing Community stories, and supporting Communities and families to engage in literacy with leadership, ownership and authenticity.

Find out about how you can get involved in Indigenous Literacy Day via the ILF’s website, and download a range of promotional resources, teacher activities, and more.

You can hear the ILF’s CEO, Ben Bowen, talk about strategies for promoting reading in Indigenous communities, in our VOLUME symposium session.