On Indigenous Literacy Day, Reggio Australia honours the wisdom of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who have always known that literacy is vast and many-layered. It is carried in story and song, etched into Country, embodied in movement, painted in colour, whispered in rhythm, and shared across generations.
This understanding resonates deeply with the concept of the Hundred Languages of Learning, a metaphor for the infinite ways children express, inquire, and make meaning. Literacy is not a single path, but a constellation of languages that together give form to identity, belonging, and knowledge.
Today reminds us of our responsibility to listen with humility, to make space for the diverse literacies that already flourish in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and to celebrate these as central to Australia’s educational landscape.
Reggio Australia stands in solidarity with First Nations peoples, affirming that literacy is cultural, relational, and expansive, woven through Country, story, and the many languages of children’s learning and expression.
