88th ABA conference in Sydney on Sunday 17th June

Another exciting update about a recent Conference and Trade Exhibition ‘Making Waves’ that Honey Ant Readers author, Margaret James attended in Sydney on Sunday 17th June.

Margaret joined Juliet Rogers, Chair of the Indigenous Literacy Fund, who spoke of the wonderful work of the ILF. Margaret presented on the challenges that Australian Aboriginal students in remote areas face when learning print literacy. She mentioned the social and emotional challenges briefly but focussed on the linguistic challenges and what the HARs are doing to address this disadvantage. As a way of highlighting the effectiveness of songs in learning another language, the members of the audience were put through their paces, and responded by singing robustly in Luritja! The HARS are written in the language of the playground, so that students learn to read from words they actually use themselves…but while they are learning to read they are learning oral English through songs and rhymes written by Margaret for the reading series.

Juliet Rogers has worked in the publishing industry in both New Zealand and Australia. She worked as a sales representative for William Collins publishers in New Zealand, as Marketing Manager at MacDonald publishers and then Managing Director of Random House NZ for ten years before migrating to work in that role in Random House Australia. In 2002 Juliet joined Murdoch Books as CEO. She is now CEO at Intelligent Investor.

Juliet has always been closely involved with book industry issues. She chaired Booksellers New Zealand for a number of years and was President of the Australian Publishers Association for three years until 2009.

Juliet is passionate about the power of books and recognises the importance of literacy and access to books in creating equal opportunity for all children in Australia. She believes that with the help of the book industry, ILF will be able to make a very real and enduring difference to the lives of indigenous children and adults in the very remotest parts of Australia.