The books are aimed at children aged two to four years.
The creators of the Little Aussie Bugs series of books, have launched a short course to accompany the dialogic books to support early years educators to grow children’s health literacy skills.
The set of four children's books was first published at the end of 2022 in a collaborative effort between Edith Cowan University's (ECU) Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute, School of Education (ECU) and Channel 7’s Telethon.
The books are aimed at children aged two to four years, featuring short, simple language and characters such as 'ugly bugs' and 'power bugs' to illustrate what happens inside people's bodies and other concepts of healthy living.
The newly launched short course, which takes just one to two hours to complete, provides an overview of health literacy, instructions on how to use the Little Aussie dialogic books, and additional activities to accompany the books that have been shared by other educators.
"With the initial release of the Little Aussie Bugs series, we ran three face-to-face workshops walking educators through how the books could be used. Since then, we have had feedback from educators that we have incorporated into the course," ECU senior lecturer Dr Ruth Wallace said.
"The course was developed in consultation with the sector. We had education leaders on an advisory committee, as well as staff from the ECU School of Education and representatives from public health. The course was piloted with great success."
Dr Wallace noted that the Little Aussie Bugs series incorporated both health and early years education, which are inextricably linked.
"An education setting is a really great place to start talking with children about their health. Embedding those messages early in life hopefully means they stick and increases the chance that the child will grow healthily through to adolescence and into adulthood. But it also means that they take those messages home to families and to their wider communities."
ECU lecturer Dr Amelia Ruscoe said the book series assists in embedding routines and rituals that are health conscious, into everyday life.
"The Little Aussie Bugs series hits two important areas of development in early childhood in terms of pre-literacy skills and health literacy. One leverages the other, creating an ideal way to get children talking about healthy practices and making this part of their everyday life."
A complete 'Little Aussie Bugs' package is available for educators, which includes access to the online course, a set of print books and e-books, and downloadable resources.
