A Perth speech pathologist is working with teachers at a remote school in Western Australia to tackle the low literacy rates of Indigenous students.

Diana Rigg has helped turn around literacy levels at the Rawa Community School, part of the Punmu Community, located in the Great Sandy Desert area of the Pilabara, where she has been working for the past two years.

Speaking to highlight Speech Pathology Week, which celebrates the speech pathology profession from August 21-27, Ms Rigg said when she first began work at the school, the majority of its 70 students were assessed as non-readers.

“Now the whole school is reading and we’re looking at expanding the program to Rawa’s sister schools,” she said.

Speech Pathology Australia research shows Indigenous students in isolated areas have less books and computers at home while high absenteeism rates also contribute to a negative impact on the development of their English literacy skills.

More than half of Indigenous families living in very remote communities speak an Indigenous language in their home while more than 70 percent also suffer chronic serious middle ear diseases that can cause permanent hearing loss and inhibit language and literacy development.

Ms Rigg said Rawa students were shown how to focus on oral language and the sounds that make up words, which taught them how to hear the different sounds in words and how these sounds are represented in written form.

They also learned how to blend sounds together to create new sounds and break words down into sounds and syllables.

“By concentrating on developing key speaking and listening skills like sound awareness and language comprehension, we noticed an enormous improvement in students’ reading, spelling and writing skills in only one term,” she said.