Nunavut kids get literature to assist language studying

The Nunavut Bilingual Schooling Society desires to get little learners studying Inuktut by giving out free illustrated kids’s books, workbooks, colouring books and different exercise books.

Two separate kits, one to show Inuktitut and the opposite to show Inuinnaqtun, are aimed toward kids aged 0 to 11. They’re a part of a pilot venture launched this fall.

And it’s been successful: inside two weeks of launching the net registration web page for the kits on social media in October, this system ‘bought out’ of its preliminary run of 100 kits.

The bilingual training society is a not-for-profit group that works to protect and promote Inuit language by creating and offering accessible, culturally applicable and professionally developed studying sources and assist for individuals of all ages.

With a rising variety of sources being curated and created to assist the grownup audio system, making Inuktut obtainable on Fb, or an possibility on Microsoft for translation, the society is now focusing its efforts on the territory’s youngest learners.

So it determined to make one thing tangible for fogeys and caregivers to assist studying at residence.

“Really sitting down collectively, studying a narrative collectively, that’s important,” mentioned Holly McCann, venture supervisor on the bilingual training society.

The house literacy package venture had been within the planning levels for a number of years, so when funding from Nunavut’s Division of Tradition and Heritage got here by way of earlier this 12 months, the society was capable of pull the items collectively for an October launch.

Dad and mom and caregivers have been capable of register to obtain the starter library by mail. McCann says she hopes it finally ends up being a precious training software for the entire household.

“Not solely are the children studying Inuktitut at residence, however the dad and mom are additionally brushing up on it as properly,” McCann mentioned. 

She mentioned not solely have Nunavummiut taken benefit to this point, however a powerful response from different elements of Canada has come as a welcomed shock. It’s one thing McCann says will certainly inform future planning.

The house literacy kits are half of a bigger vary of sources, each print and on-line, centered on selling kids’s literacy and language abilities, says McCann.

She says her society’s aim is to offer instructional sources to assist the transmission of language, oral historical past and cultural identification for future generations.

“With language comes tradition and group,” McCann mentioned.