Mudiad Meithrin Announce New Welsh and Irish-medium App featuring E-books for Young Children

MUDIAD Meithrin – the leading Welsh-medium early years specialist in Wales – is proud to announce a new app featuring 3 Welsh e-books, with one of these books translated into Irish so that it may be used by Gaeloideachas to promote Irish-medium education in Ireland.

Mudiad Meithrin is an organisation passionate about giving every child in Wales the opportunity to play, learn and grow in Welsh. Numerous parents who aren’t Welsh speakers themselves, have commented that they feel that they have missed out on the opportunities to become confident Welsh speakers over the years and are eager that their children are given the opportunity to become Welsh speakers. Dewin a Doti 2 is Mudiad Meithrin’s second app, but it’s the first to include a story in Irish as well as versions in Makaton, and this app will aid parents to hear and use Welsh with their children at home.

The Dewin a Doti 2 app includes 3 stories featuring Mudiad Meithrin’s lovable characters Dewin and Doti. Dewin (which means wizard) and his faithful friend Doti (the dog) are present in all our Cylchoedd Meithrin (Welsh-medium playgroups) helping children to speak Welsh. The three e-books see Dewin and Doti celebrating the New Year across the world, Dewin and Doti helping their friend to recycle, with the third – which has been translated into Irish – seeing Dewin and Doti travelling across Wales.

Dr Gwenllian Lansdown Davies, Mudiad Meithrin’s Chief Executive added:

“As an organisation passionate about giving every child in Wales the opportunity to play, learn and grow in Welsh, we love working with partners to promote both language learning and the benefits of being multi-lingual. As 80% of the world’s population is bilingual, we believe that being bilingual is beneficial to every child in Wales and offers them more opportunities in life. We hope that parents will enjoy using this app with their children”.

Activity sheets and games are also available to download via the app store on all platforms. A Makaton version is available with all the Welsh-medium stories as well.

CEO of Gaeloideachas, Bláthnaid ní Ghréacháin, commends the work by saying
“I wish to thank Mudiad Meithrin for inviting us to be part of this wonderful initiative and for allowing young speakers and learners to enjoy the Irish language by way of this new e-book. Having this book available electronically extends the opportunities to many families and early-year settings to access the language easily. We look forward to working together with Mudiad Meithrin in the future to develop more resources to help encourage further usage and learning of Welsh and Irish”.

Mudiad Meithrin have produced the Irish-medium version in partnership with Gaeloideachas which is the national lead-organisation that supports the development of Irish-medium and Gaeltacht schools at primary and at post-primary level. Gaeloideachas provides advice, assistance and support to people who wish to have their children educated through the medium of Irish, from pre-school (naíonraí) to Irish-medium primary and post-primary schools in Gaeltacht and non-Gaeltacht areas. Gaeloideachas works to advocate on behalf of naíonraí and schools to facilitate a high standard of immersion education throughout the country as well as to develop and strengthen the Irish speaking community and culture. Gaeloideachas’ vision is that high-quality Irish-medium immersion education should be available to every parent and guardian who would choose it for their child and Mudiad Meithrin’s vision is that Welsh-medium education should be available to every child in Wales.