ALEA - Australian Literacy Educators' Association

🌑 The June 2026 edition of ALEA’s journal ‘Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years’ (PLEPY) includes an insightful dialogue with the erudite Prof. Allan Luke. 🌟You’ll want to read it 🌟 Congratulations Natalie!
“What got left behind in the “great debate” (Chall, 1967) and scientific pursuit of the one ‘perfect method' was Freire's simple insight: when you learn to read and write, you learn to read and write the world. When we teach literacy, we are necessarily engaging in teaching values, beliefs, everyday cultural and social practices. Teaching is story telling, Kieran Egan (1986) explained, and we turn away from that at our own peril. “(p. 14).
… “It is possible to create accessible early reading materials that are not meaningless, texts that speak to relationships, values and story—think of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad series of entry reading materials and so many other texts. At the same time, to take the current dominant version of synthetic phonics as the major guiding principle of the curriculum is a mistake. It is an abrogation of teaching as meaningful, rich and culturally significant storytelling.” (p. 15). 💢You can download Allan Luke’s Hot Topic article, ‘On Explicit and Direct Instruction’ at https://www.alea.edu.au/public-resources/alea-hot-topics/

🌑 *ALEA attends the 2026 Volunteers’ Service Ceremony* 🌑 see: http://educators-sa.sa.edu.au/2026-volunteers-service-ceremony/ 🎉
The 2026 Volunteers Service Ceremony, held at Yitpi Yartapuultiku (Port Adelaide) on the 21st May, led by Educators SA president, Lisa Jane O’Connor, was attended by Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA) committee members Kathleen Melis, Frankie Roberts, Dr Jill Colton and Dr Amy Farndale.
🔆Celebrating the theme “Your Year to Volunteer”, Hamilton Calder, CEO of Volunteering SA and NT, awarded Jill and Amy a certificate of appreciation for 5+ years of outstanding service with ALEA. Frankie was also congratulated on a massive 10+ years of incredible service supporting the literacy learning of Australian children and the professional development of teachers in the state, national and internationally.
🔆As the volunteers gathered and were celebrated one by one, we learned that “Volunteers are community superheros wearing everyday clothes”. Volunteers supporting literacy and languages education, music, arts, dance, philosophy, science, environmental/ agricultural education, business, legal education, wellbeing, special education, history, early childhood education and schools all combined under the one roof, representing a community of humanitarians that South Australia should be proud of.
🔆If you are a volunteer, we send you much appreciation for the work you do. It is rewarding, purposeful and an altruistic act. If you’re not currently volunteering, perhaps consider… is this your year to volunteer and share your passions with the world? 👇🏽EDITED PHOTOS

🌑 Have you seen the developing 2026 National Conference Program? It is dynamic and growing on the conference website at https://eventandconfco.eventsair.com/2026-alea-conference/
💢 Early Bird Registrations are available until the 5 June!

🌑 ALEA now has a new category of membership! We are offering Digital Membership, which means that you will only receive digital access to ALEA’s three journals. 💻🖥️📱
🌑 If you are the administrator of your school’s ALEA membership, don’t forget to sign up the teachers who will be the sub-members of your school membership. See the ‘School Membership - Sub-Member’ link at https://www.alea.edu.au/membership/join-alea/

Have you considered joining ALEA? Read about the benefits of being a member at https://www.alea.edu.au/membership/benefits-of-membership/
** New members can join online via https://www.alea.edu.au/membership/join-alea/
🤩 If you are a school or institution based educator ask your ALEA Primary Contact to join you up as a Sub-member of the School Membership 🤩

In the February 2026 edition of ALEA’s LLMY journal, in the ‘Connecting Points’ section, co-editor Kylie Bradfield revisits four articles published in the journal that explore graphic novels from diverse angles: Fitzsimmons' (2007) critique of deficit discourses, Lawn's (2012) reflections on visual literacy and teacher mindset, DeHart's (2021) practical strategies for scaffolding multimodal texts, and Garrison, Wulff, and Lymn's (2021) trauma-informed approach to student authorship. As Kylie says, the connecting points in the articles remind us about the potential and the challenges graphic novels pose. Recommendations from the articles are provided.
🌑 ALEA Members can access all journal articles through the Member Only Resources section of the website at https://www.alea.edu.au
🌑 Join ALEA today to enjoy journal access and other member benefits.

💢Have you read the ‘Opinari’ by Lisa Kervin in the February 2026 issue of the ALEA journal, ‘Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years (PLEPY)’?

The theme of this February issue highlights a concern that has always been a focus for the work of ALEA members - ‘Literacy (Literacies) for Social Justice’. 🔆 Members have access to PLEPY articles through the Member Only Resources section of our website @ https://www.alea.edu.au

💢 Download and read these three further articles from the AJLL special issue at https://link.springer.com/journal/44020/online-first All the articles are Open Access, so freely available. ALEA Members have access through the Member Only Resources to all articles in all of ALEA’s three journals.

An update about corrections to this article has been published. See: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s44020-026-00104-5

💢 Download and read this research, which provides insight into why educational policymakers “need to recognise that acculturation pathways of migrant-and refugee-background students may not entail generalised adoption of dominant Australian cultural and linguistic norms. 🔆 The findings call for differences to be framed as strengths rather than deficits in multicultural, multilingual worlds.”
💢 https://link.springer.com/journal/44020/online-first

Have you registered for this great two part workshop supporting students from culturally and linguistically diverse -CALD- communities.
💢Register before *** 11:00 PM (AEST) Tuesday 19 May 2026 ***

🌑 This stellar professional learning event about engaging parents and careers in CALD education contexts is open for registrations. Register now, so you don’t miss out. Two (2) workshop sessions with such an important focus! https://www.alea.edu.au/eventdetails/38142/professional-dialogues-about-engaging-parents-and-carers-in-cald-education-contexts