Languages available: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Dari, Hindi, Punjabi and Vietnamese

Did you read about the fkaCS Audio Story Collection in the October issue of fkaCS Members News?

With funding generously provided through a Forest Hill Grant, FKA Children's Services (fkaCS) developed a small collection of translated audio stories. Five stories, universally popular in early childhood services, have been translated into six languages.

The Audio Story Collection CDs (Educational Program CD/Child and Family CD) are available in the following languages; Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin) Dari, Hindi, Punjabi and Vietnamese, with each CD including the following titles:

• 'Noni the Pony' by Alison Lester
• 'Magic Beach' by Alison Lester
• 'When Frank was Four' by Alison Lester
• 'The Very Cranky Bear' by Nick Bland
• 'Walking Through the Jungle' by Stella Blackstone 

The project arose from the awareness that many children involved in early childhood education and care services do not have access to their home languages as part of their education, and that the language resources available to purchase or borrow, cover a limited range of both titles and languages.

It is our hope that these audio stories will offer an accessible way for educators and teachers to bring community home languages into their service. The purposeful selection of the titles included in the collection will enable emerging English language learners to share and participate in the collective experience that these stories afford, with their peers, teachers, educators and families.

The Audio Story Collection is available to borrow from the Multicultural Resource Centre exclusively for fkaCS members. Each CD pack contains the Audio Story Collection CDs (Educational Program CD/Child and Family CD), How to Guide with intentional teaching examples and a copy of the original children’s story books (hard cover/paperback). 

Education and Care Services members are entitled to receive MRC orders (up to 5kg) delivered to your service free-of-charge twice a year. 

To further extend the use of the Audio Story Collection within your educational program, Story Bags with supporting resources are currently in production and will be available in the new year.