Gray is a suburb of Palmerston 23km south-east of the Darwin CBD.
The Smith Family has been delivering Let's Read at the Gray Family Centre since 2012.
Approximately 10 families participate in the program per term.
In 2015, 50 Early Childhood Educators in the Palmerston Community were trained to deliver Let’s Read throughout Palmerston.
The Smith Family donated Let’s Read Book Suggestions to Palmerston Library. Gray Family Centre held information mornings on Let’s Read. The Smith Family have a Let’s Read information booth and give out tip sheets and books at the annual National Children’s Week community event in Palmerston.
2017 - A big year!
Parent Leaders from four Primary Schools in Darwin and Palmerston completed Let's Read training in the last 12 months.
The parents were trained to provide a Let's Read 'touch point' with families through their school's Family Centre and to promote key early literacy messages within their own networks and the wider community. The Parent Leaders reported enjoying the training, with one parent reporting, "I like the idea of parents being involved in the program and delivering information to other parents. I believe this could work well."
Three Parent Leaders joined The Smith Family staff members at a Children’s Week event and spoke to 80 families about the importance of early literacy and provided Let's Read resource packs. This event provided a great opportunity to build confidence and use the Let's Read knowledge and skills to engage families in the early literacy conversation. The Parent Leaders reported they had a great time and by the end of the event felt like 'professionals'.
Early this year the Parent Leaders attended a ‘Community Day in the Park’.
Recently they attended a ‘Family Fun Day’ in Palmerston. The community is starting to recognize us! They also managed to survey approximately 90 people.
Angela Wear, Program Coordinator | The Smith Family
Morning tea at schools, 2016
With the support of our Parent Engagement team and budget we held a Let's Read morning tea at each our partner schools in Palmerston. Parents were invited to attend at their Family Centre or Preschool, we set up early literacy focused activities for families to participate in with their children and we invited our newly trained Let's Read community professionals to deliver the 5 elements to the families. This was a fantastic opportunity for the school to engage with families, and a supportive way for the trained Let's Read professionals to practice their new skills with the support of The Smith Family staff.
There were two reasons we did this. One was to give our newly trained Let's Read educators an opportunity to deliver the 5 elements with a facilitator to support them. The other was to encourage disengaged families to visit their school/ Family Centre and with the offer of morning tea and a reading resource bag we found we had an increased number of new parents come along so staff at the schools could have a friendly conversation about early literacy.
These activities helped with all of the above short term goals and we have partner schools booking a Let's Read morning tea at their schools for 2017.
Angela Wear | Program Coordinator | The Smith Family
Deadly Little Learners
In May 2016, The Smith Family NT staff had a great morning with the “Deadly Little Learners” playgroup families at Gray Family Centre in Palmerston, promoting Let’s Read by sharing books, stories, songs and sensory play, all themed around “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. Deadly Little Learners is an Aboriginal playgroup started this year by Kylie, our wonderful Family Centre Co-ordinator.
Kylie has attended Let’s Read training and has been quietly building the intentional learning around Let’s Read with the new playgroup over the past 5 months. She wanted to attract more indigenous families to the Family Centre at Gray. This was a great opportunity for The Smith Family team to support Kylie to build Let’s Read awareness.
Invitations were sent and it was advertised on the Family Centre Facebook page and sent to local community services who had previously attended the Let’s Read training. This was an opportunity to give the services an idea of what is possible with support from The Smith Family staff.
On the morning staff set up different learning stations with musical instruments, playdough, painting, sensory play and a reading nook, all themed around the book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Ten new families attend on the day and engaged enthusiastically, yet again proving that Let’s Read makes a difference.
There was singing, dancing and a local community Aboriginal woman sat down with all the families to read her own version of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” story. The families finished the morning with a delicious morning tea inspired by our theme. The team had conversations with each family on the importance of early literacy experiences and shared reading tips on how to have fun with reading. Each family took home a Let’s Read bag with tip sheets and a book.
The Smith Family staff hope to build upon this event by promoting to the parents, carers and grandparents who attended to ask about Let’s Read in their local playgroups, child care centres, community organisations and pre-schools. They also hope that this will encourage Early Child Care educators and community leaders to attend the upcoming Let’s Read training sessions funded by Red Cross Communities for Children in Palmerston.
Following the success of this event, two Family Centres have invited The Smith Family to have a Let’s Read awareness morning using the same theme.
Let’s Read Training in Palmerston finishes on a high!
11 participants including 5 parent leaders were trained to deliver the Let’s Read program in Palmerston this week. This completes the Let’s Read Contract for the Palmerston area. 50 educators were trained, along with the 5 parents, over the last 12 months from six schools in Palmerston.
Building capacity in our parent community with Parent Engagement
This last training workshop included 5 Parent Leaders who will be supported through the Parent Engagement Program to deliver Let’s Read to parents and carers of young children in the Family Centre space. The Parent Leaders are from the playgroup ‘Deadly Little Learners’ at Gray Family Centre and a newly forming playgroup at Moulden Park Primary’s Family Centre. The Parent Leaders will come together to talk about the best way to deliver the program to their families. There are exciting times ahead in the early literacy and parent engagement space!
Ange Wear Office Manager | The Smith Family
2015 – Red Cross Communities for Children
2016 - Commonwealth Bank
E letsread@thesmithfamily.com.au
P 08 89856841