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Printed from The Vanier Institute of the Family's website at www.vifamily.ca. © 2007.
Transition MAGAZINE Right from the Start: Literacy and Families 
Right from the Start: Literacy and Families Summer is often a time when many of us look forward to reading a growing stack of books, whether in the back yard, on vacation or at a cottage. As you read this issue of Transition, bear in mind how privileged you are. Recent research indicates that roughly 40% of Canadians lack the reading and writing skills needed to succeed in today’s economy. More shocking is that about 90% of seniors lack the skills necessary to deal with the health information they need. The links between literacy and poverty are well-known, as are those between literacy and health. Further, these high numbers threaten the foundations of democracy, founded as it is on an educated and informed public. The first article, ‘How Literacy Supports Families’, is an interview with Donald G. Jamieson of the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet). Understanding how literacy supports families requires us to recognize that literacy is fundamental for people to develop their full potential in our society. To see the real impact of literacy,we need only look at thosewho lack literacy skills. Their lives tend to be much more marginal, more troubled and more dependent. Dr. Jamieson discusses a number of the factors that low literacy brings, from dependence on social assistance to criminal activity. And since families are foundational social units, these impacts are felt in families. The opposite is also true, that families with higher literacy skills do far better at and come closer to reaching their potential. Carole Peterson, an expert on building the precursors to literacy, has written a useful article for anyone whose lives include the joy of young children, especially parents. She discusses a number of ways of interacting with young children that greatly enhance their later ability to break the code for reading, and then to move from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” First and foremost, children need to hear words. So parents need to talk to their children right from the start, because hearingwords builds children’s vocabulary, aswell as teaches language structures.More importantly, Peterson has developed an innovative approach to engaging young children in talk by building their ability to tell stories about events in their own lives from as early as two years old. She includes a helpful list of ways to foster children’s narrative skills. The third pillar for this issue is an article on best-practices in family literacy programs across Canada, co-authored by Janet Shively, a long-time expert in family literacy based in Nova Scotia, and Maureen Sanders, Executive Director of the Centre for Family Literacy in Edmonton. They have identified five statements of principle that underlie excellence in family literacy programs, illustrating each with examples and quotes that showthese principles in action. These start with the strengths of families in their communities, and extend to the need for professional training and assessment to ensure that programs are successful in their goals. At the end of this section, I have included a page of resources for those readers who would like to learn more about literacy, including research, advocacy, databases, national programs and resources for practice. Information about what is going on in your community can be accessed through the databases and several of the other resources listed. How Literacy Supports Families:
LOWE: Can you speak about how literacy supports families and how poor literacy skills hurt families? JAMIESON: The first thing to remember is that we talk about both oral language and literacy because they go back and forth. Good oral language skills provide the foundation for good literacy skill development. And then as you learn to read your oral language improves. It’s a cycle, a feedback loop. They are foundational skills. Language and literacy skills touch pretty much everything. They touch communication, social interaction, the ability to learn independently. If you survey employers, quite independent of job-specific skills, good communication skills and good document reading skills are right at the top of the list of what they are looking for. They are foundational skills and they influence everything else. So it’s not really surprising when you see that everything else that you measure that you value in society ultimately has some sort of link back to literacy skills. The link to school achievement is obvious and everybody accepts that. But it influences employment opportunities, it influences income, it influences health status, it influences interactions with the justice system for good or for ill. It influences dependence on social support systems. The Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network (CLLRNet) is part of the Networks of Centres of Excellence, which are run by Industry Canada and the granting councils. The Networks strive to apply Canadian research so as to benefit Canada economically and socially. CLLRNet is a network that brings committed stakeholders together – policy-makers, service providers and researchers. This creates a common ground for them to share their knowledge, skills, expertise and needs, and to work together to share the knowledge or to generate the knowledge that will answer those questions that stakeholders and policy-makers need answered. At one level, if you look at social assistance, the estimates are that two thirds of people on social assistance have low literacy skills; about 40% of people with low literacy skills are unemployed; roughly four out of five offenders in the criminal justice system have less than a grade ten education. So if you have those low skill levels, first it puts you at risk – you’re less employable and all the other stuff comes with it – but it also puts you at risk in unusual kinds of ways. If you think about someone who comes in contact with the justice system, having good literacy, document and language skills makes it more likely that you’ll understand your rights, that you’ll be a more credible participant in the system, and that you’ll understand your options, and what the police, your lawyer and everyone else in the system might say to you. It’s a life skill that’s universal. It touches everything. And as the economy changes, the opportunities for people to be employed in different positions changes. So a lot of the jobs that were available forty or fifty years ago that didn’t require high levels of literacy skill, those are the jobs that our economy is losing. LOWE:A grade school education used to be enough to get a good job. JAMIESON: That’s right. But where the jobs are being created now is at the other end. They require the higher levels of skill. On the one hand, that’s good. They have high value added. They tend to have higher incomes but they require higher levels of skill in order to earn those incomes. And if you can’t access those jobs, then you’re on social assistance, or unemployed or you have to find an alternative. If you’re really looking for a return on your investment, you’d invest in people with scores that are lower than average, and move them into the average or slightly above average skill level. That’s where you get the big bang for the buck. There are strong linkages between literacy level and income. High school grads earn about 50% more than dropouts. A typical estimate is that a year of schooling adds about eight percent to average income. But what’s really interesting is that when researchers have gone in and done analyses of how much of that is due to the skills that someone has acquired, they estimate that about 50% of the premium associated with university graduation is associated with increased literacy skills and about 60% of the premium associated with high school graduation is associated with increased literacy skills. So part of it is, yeah, you got the credential and you learned a bunch of specific things in school, but half or more of it is associated with this very general foundational literacy skill that really touches everything. LOWE: In Canada, do we see literacy rates going up or down or are they staying flat? JAMIESON: So far they seem to be staying flat. The best idea of how we’re doing as a society comes from the large-scale international studies that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development organizes in which we can compare our performance to performance in other countries. Overall there has been almost no change over the last decade in the proportion of people with low literacy skills. That’s not particularly encouraging. But I’m optimistic that we will see a change, at least in younger Canadians going forward, because it has really caught the attention of a lot of provinces. There are initiatives in most provinces to make kids better prepared for school and to have both literacy and numeracy receive more attention. But we really haven’t had long enough to know how those things are working. LOWE: What about new Canadians and literacy? JAMIESON: Certainly there are some challenges in that population, and Toronto and Vancouver in particular have real challenges because of the population density in some schools of people from non-English, non-French language backgrounds. So they’re being educated in a second or third language. But I think Canada is dealing fairly well with that. Part of it is that the mix of immigrants that we are choosing to let into the country is better than in many other countries. Speaking in broad population terms, we’re letting in people that tend to have higher levels of education, who place greater value on education. LOWE: What does literacy mean to a democracy? JAMIESON: When we talk about low literacy here, there are really two levels. At the lowest level, we’re talking about two out of every five Canadians scoring at what Statistics Canada classifies as either Level One or Two. At Level One – and there are people who don’t achieve Level One – we’re talking about very basic skills that haven’t been achieved. An example is reading a medicine bottle and knowing what dosage to give your child if your child has a prescription, how many pills to give and how often. People at Level One don’t have that skill and that’s about one out of five Canadians. So that’s pretty scary. A comparable number don’t have the skills for basic independent inquiry, so if you had a campaign brochure or you were participating in a learning program at work, you wouldn’t be able to receive the expected benefit or access the expected information. LOWE: Is that critical thinking skills? JAMIESON: No, it’s just extracting the basic information from the document. The real higher-level skills are at Levels Three, Four and Five. Three is typically what we expect of high school graduates. Four and Five are what everybody is seeking in terms of the knowledge economy. So the implications for democracy are pretty clear and pretty predictable. Lower levels of literacy skills tend to be associated with low voting rates. We don’t have huge participation rates in elections in Canada and literacy is likely to be a factor. We know that they’re related. There are some studies that have found less involvement in community activities, less volunteer work and so forth. Certainly the ability to find and use information and learn independently is missing. Increased crime rates and increased rates of imprisonment, increased unemployment, increased social assistance rates. As a nation, there is an opportunity that is pretty amazing and is one that really is neglected. I’m in a university and a lot of attention was given to the “Innovation Economy.” There are lots of resources focused on investments in universities, in that intellectual elite, as a way of driving economic development and innovation. There is nothing wrong with that, but if you’re really looking for a return on your investment, you’d invest in people with scores that are lower than average, and move them into the average or slightly above average skill level. That’s where you get the big bang for the buck. In a Statistics Canada economic analysis of literacy skill, if you could increase the average literacy score by 1%, you’d have a labour productivity increase of 2.5%. That’s enormous. And that one percent change in average literacy score – we’re talking right in the middle of the population – if you can get that, you’d have an overall increase of about 1.5% permanently in GDP. So that’s an $8-billion return for that 1% change. That’s huge. There’s nothing wrong with investment in the elites, I wouldn’t discourage it, there’s no question that more Level Four and Five knowledge workers are needed, but you can’t increase productivity and GDP without investing in the people who carry the economy. LOWE: What about people with low literacy skills? Do you think there are a lot of people out there like Jacques Demers, people who just never learned to read? JAMIESON: I think he’s a pretty extreme case. But what we do know is that people who have low literacy skills, there are a whole variety of coping strategies that they employ. They tend not to vote, which makes sense. If you really can’t participate in the debate, you can’t really get engaged in it, then you’re less likely to participate. So you withdraw. That’s one strategy. And people have all kinds of other coping strategies. To say that somebody doesn’t have good literacy skills doesn’t say anything about their intellectual capacity. It’s just simply a skill that they don’t have. Smart people will develop coping strategies, but there are a whole lot of things that they won’t be able to do. And we’re living in a society and at a time where it is increasingly important to have those kinds of skills. LOWE: Why do you think people hide the fact that they have low literacy skills? JAMIESON: I think, in general, society doesn’t deal well with a disability or an inability. And people always want to put their best side forward. You see it in other areas. You see it as very competent people become older and their hearing begins to deteriorate. You see a reluctance to admit that their hearing has deteriorated and to wear a hearing aid. So there’s nothing specific about literacy. It’s about admitting that you’re not as competent as the person next to you with respect to something. I think it’s just a general human trait not to want to reveal that. Interestingly though, when people at low literacy levels are asked what their literacy skill is like, they actually overestimate it. There’s not an appreciation that they really do have a problem and part of that is how they cope and part of that is what skills they attribute to others. You need to be aware of what other people can do in order to know what you can’t do. That’s why employers often have more success when, to increase literacy skills, they have a general team learning approach and they don’t use the word literacy. To say that somebody doesn’t have good literacy skills doesn’t say anything about their intellectual capacity. It’s just simply a skill that they don’t have. LOWE: What is your hope for the future? JAMIESON: Basically, I’d like to see people recognize that they have part of the answer. Everybody does have a role. But I’d like to bring my answer down to something that’s achievable through CLLRNet. When we started out, we had meetings where the university people talked and the other people just sort of shuffled around. University people thought they had the answers. But it turned out that they had answers to questions that nobody else was really asking. What I’ve seen is a change in the questions that are being asked, and the way the answers are being given. I’d like to see recognition that there’s lots of knowledge out there that should be put into practice. And when you put it into practice, you can’t just assume that it’s going to work in every context. You’re going to have to make a commitment to find out what works and what doesn’t and when. Also, some programs, with the best of intentions, can actually do harm, and other programs don’t have as much benefit as they should have. There’s always more benefit to be wrung out of a program than is actually being achieved. The problem is that, whether it’s a program manager or politician or whoever is doing this, we set them up so that we discourage them from asking the question: “How well are we doing and how can we do better?” We actually punish them if they find out that a program that they’ve implemented isn’t working. What we have to do is be a culture that doesn’t expect programs to always work and understands that many programs don’t work quite as well as they should. And to avoid being a culture that punishes people whose programs don’t work all that well only if they don’t find out. Because that’s when you waste the money, when you go on delivering a program that’s not as effective as it could be and you’re not asking how well is it working and how can I do it better. We all have to take responsibility. LOWE: And that’s how CLLRNet works because all the stakeholders are invested and want to get it right? JAMIESON: Yes. The researchers are wasting their time if they do wonderful research but nobody pays any attention. And the practitioners are wasting their time if their program isn’t as good as it could be if they took some extra time and effort to evaluate what was working and what wasn’t and find ways to improve it. Those messages have to seep into the different communities. There’s always a way to do it better, so if we open ourselves up and start to ask those questions in the right ways, then we will do things better as time goes on. It’s a cultural shift in seeing things as never finished. Ultimately, that will benefit families because families and literacy are both foundational, and each supports the other. Building a Foundation for Literacy
In the early years of children’s lives, parents are their most important teachers. The verbal environment they provide sets the stage for children’s language learning. However, this linguistic environment varies substantially between children. For example, 1- to 3-year-old children in some families hear several times as many words spoken to them per week as do children in other families, and words spoken build a child’s vocabulary. Research has shown that some children enter kindergarten having heard as many as 32 million more words spoken to them than have other children! Thus, first and foremost, it is important for parents to talk with children frequently, and about a range of topics. A large-scale longitudinal study of families found that although all families engaged in similar amounts of parent-child talk about behaviour management and child socialization, there were dramatic differences in how much families engaged in other kinds of talk— about past events and future plans, about causal and temporal relationships, about emotions and about explanations. When these other topics were discussed, parents used a wider variety of vocabulary and more complex grammar. These interactions were also more likely to be emotionally positive in tone, and parents were more responsive to what their children were saying. During such conversations, parents were much more likely to provide descriptive detail about what was being talked about, and to relate objects, actions, and events together in various ways. In short, children were hearing more complexity in the language that was spoken to them. The amount of talk directed to children has been shown to foster better vocabulary skills and better understanding of more complex sentence grammar, and both of these, in turn, have been shown to be related to better language skills when children were older. In particular, children’s vocabulary at kindergarten entry is one of the best predictors of their reading comprehension skills, as far into the future as grade 8. Thus, one of the most important things that parents can do is talk to their children a lot, and about a wide range of topics. The skills involved in learning to read are commonly understood to fall into two main categories: code-related skills and oral language skills. Code-related skills include knowing the alphabet, knowing what sounds the letters make, print knowledge (what letters look like), and most importantly, phonological awareness (understanding that words are composed of several sounds and that, for example, bat begins with the /b/ sound, followed by an /a/ sound, and ends with yet another sound, a /t/). There are a number of athome activities that foster children’s code-related skills. Children can be encouraged to learn the alphabet, including what sound a printed letter stands for. Recognition games for alphabet letters can easily be played with children, and research suggests that such print knowledge helps children decode writing. As well, rhyming games support the development of phonological awareness, which is another strong predictor of children’s success in reading in the early years of school. Rhyming games, and other games that focus on the sounds in words, help children figure out that individual sounds play a role in many words and that they are fundamental construction units for building words. For example, the words bat, ball, bite, beak, and bill all share the same beginning sound even though they are very different words, and pail, ball, fell, pill, and fool all share the same ending sound. Code-related skills are especially important during the first couple of years of school when children are learning to decode written words. However, oral language skills are also important, and, in fact, they play their most important role from grade 3 onward, once children have essentially broken the code for reading. Most importantly, oral language skills contribute to reading comprehension. That is, they underlie the transition from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’ Oral language skills include vocabulary, grammatical knowledge and narrative skills. One familiar type of narrative is the story, the sort of fictional tales that children love to have read to them. Reading to children is an important activity that fosters later literacy skills in children, and is the pre-literacy activity with which parents are most familiar. Just about everyone knows that reading to children is an excellent thing to do if you want to encourage later reading skills. Research has shown that children who are exposed to more books not only have better vocabulary, but they become better readers, particularly in later elementary school. Recently, the value of one particular style of reading picture books, called ‘dialogic reading,’ with 2- and 3-yearolds has been demonstrated with both normally developing children and children with developmental disabilities. Dialogic reading of picture books involves parents posing questions to children about the story, about the pictures, about what children expect to happen, and so on. For example, children are asked to describe what is happening in the storybook pictures, and asked questions like: “Why did Froggy go to Mr. Toad’s house?” or “What do you think Mary’s going to find in the box?” or “What did George see when he got there?” In this way, children are brought into the ‘reading’ task in a more active way and contribute to story construction. All parents can easily learn to read to their 2- and 3-year-olds in this manner, with resultant gains in the oral language skills of their children. Although most parents know that reading to children is an important foundational oral language skill, there is yet another way to help children acquire important oral language skills that is probably just as important, and which many parents may be unfamiliar with—engaging children in narrative talk about the autobiographical events in their lives. This sort of narrative talk has also been termed personal narration or personal ‘storytelling’. This sort of narrative talk is ubiquitous in the personal-story exchanges that adults do all the time when they tell each other about various experiences in their lives—what happened on their way to work, what funny thing the kids did last night, and so on. This is also what parents and children do when they talk about visiting grandma last weekend, feeding the ducks at the park yesterday, or what happened at daycare that morning. Children’s vocabulary at kindergarten entry is one of the best predictors of their reading comprehension skills, as far into the future as grade 8. This sort of personal storytelling or narration is not just entertainment and information exchange. It is also a powerful way to foster pre-literacy skills in children. In many ways, autobiographical event narratives mirror the characteristics of the written texts that children read as they acquire literacy:
Oral event-narratives that children learn to tell as preschoolers are similar to the texts that children learn to read in school. Children in a rich environment of personal event storytelling form expectations about how written texts are organized. In turn, this helps them make the transition to literacy. The path to literacy begins long before children begin formal reading instruction, and experiences that occur in the home influence the later course of children’s reading success. Recent research has highlighted the importance of this oral personal storytelling for later literacy acquisition. Although children have difficulty making up fictional stories in the early preschool years, they can begin talking about past events in their lives as early as age 2. Beginning at that age, parents can foster narrative skills in their children by encouraging them to talk about the experiences in their lives. Like any skill, they develop with practice and with guidance from others who have that skill. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that parents play a key role in helping children develop good narrative skills. The following types of parental behaviour and discourse have been shown to foster good narrative skills in children:
Children whose parents (and other important adults in their lives) employ these techniques and encourage their children to tell elaborated autobiographical stories enter kindergarten with more complex narrative skills. Moreover, by telling elaborated autobiographical stories, children learn the structure that is also found in the fictional stories that they will read in school. The narrative skills that children have when they enter kindergarten are related to their subsequent literacy achievement, even up to grade 7. To sum up, the path to literacy begins long before children begin formal reading instruction, and experiences that occur in the home influence the later course of children’s reading success. Thus, parents play an important role in helping children acquire the pre-literacy skills that lay the foundation for subsequent literacy acquisition and there are a number of ways that parents can help children acquire these skills. Some assist children with the task of breaking the code of written words, and others help children develop the oral language skills that foster better reading comprehension in the later elementary school years. Both normally developing and at-risk children profit from parent-child interactions that foster pre-literacy skills, but at-risk children may benefit even more. Parent-child activities include helping children acquire phonological awareness and print knowledge, fostering vocabulary growth, reading to children (both standard story-reading as well as dialogic reading of picture books to very young children), and helping children develop narrative skills through frequent talk about past events in the children’s lives. The pre-literacy skills with which children enter school make a big difference as they traverse the road to literacy. Promising Practices in Family Literacy Programs
As Rose checks out six new books she quietly confides in Janice, “The C.O.W. bus has been the best thing ever for us. The regular library is two bus rides away but you come right to us. I never knew how much young kids could learn about books and reading.” She pauses for a moment and then adds, “I’m afraid they’ll soon be better readers than I am. How will I be able to help them then?” Janice uses this as an opener to share information about the other literacy programs offered by the Centre for Family Literacy, and by the time Janice returns to the office the next day Rose has phoned and made an appointment to be matched with a tutor. Two weeks later she is meeting with her new tutor and already developing enough confidence to begin talking about entering a college upgrading program. Learning takes place in all families, among all generations, in all kinds of unique ways. It happens naturally in the daily process of “getting things done” and sharing experiences together. The Edmonton Literacy C.O.W. is a family literacy partnership program between the Centre for Family Literacy and Success by 6®. Running for the past seven years, it travels to ten communities weekly, bringing books, informal programs and literacy support to families who lack resources and services. It is one example of innovative family literacy programs across the country that focus their attention on the importance of family, home and community in supporting the development of literacy and positive attitudes towards learning. Studies worldwide show that family influences on student achievement outweigh the effects of either school or community. Learning takes place in all families, among all generations, in all kinds of unique ways. It happens naturally in the daily process of “getting things done” and sharing experiences together. The intention of family literacy programs is to address the learning needs of all family members by building on home and community literacy practices, and to provide appropriate supports for parents in their powerful and challenging role as the first and most important teachers of the next generation. In recent years, family literacy providers across Canada have developed guidelines and quality standards for family literacy programs to ensure they support the needs of a wide range of families in a wide range of communities. This article focuses on five central statements of principle that form the foundation of promising practice in family literacy. Each statement is followed by examples of its implementation in actual programs. This is in no way a comprehensive look at family literacy programs in Canada, but rather a glimpse into some of the excellent work that is being done in every province and territory – in community centres, libraries, health centres, youth centres, schools, literacy centres, church halls, and other community spaces. Family literacy programs are participatory, intergenerational, support diversity, and build on the strengths and goals of families and their community. Family literacy is an approach to literacy development that recognizes and supports the family as a “learning unit.” It builds on families’ strengths and connections in the context of the culture and community in which they live and learn. Family literacy is an approach to literacy development that recognizes and supports the family as a “learning unit.” It builds on families’ strengths and connections in the context of the culture and community in which they live and learn. As this guideline is the heart of quality family literacy programming, we will look at two programs, one on the east coast and one on the west coast, that demonstrate this fundamental principal in action. Families Learning Together: A family literacy program with Mi’kmaw Communities in Atlantic Canada was developed to involve parents in nurturing literacy skills with their children in a way that reflects the strengths of participating families as well as the indigenous context and history. Researchers from the University of Prince Edward Island partnered with members of three Mi’kmaw communities using a process that involved constant feedback and adjustment to ensure that the program met the specific needs of Mi’kmaw families and their children. From 2003-2006, approximately 31 families from Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia participated in the development and implementation of ten comprehensive, theme-based, culturally appropriate literacy modules. Facilitators were members of the community, participants were considered the experts on their own families, and the rich family histories and experiences of parents were used to develop the literacy program. Themes relevant to the community were identified by community members, elders and aboriginal education experts, and then linked to specific skills that needed to be learned. Culturally appropriate resource packs were designed for the parents to complement each module. Magazine articles, tips, strategies, and question and answer-type resources were rewritten in clear language for home reference. The additional resources provided supplemental support for the parents’ literacy and skill development. Following the pilot, the assessment results showed that children experienced significant gains in listening comprehension and literacy levels. Feedback from parents revealed that they continued to use the strategies with their children and other family members. Parents also commented on the special one-on-one time with their child. “Before it would be, O.K., let’s read the book, then it’s time for bed… Now you read a book and talk about it a little bit more and... there’s a little bit more conversation between us.” Without exception, every family wanted their children’s literacy skills to improve and stated that literacy is a high priority for their family. “I don’t want my kids to get stuck,” said one parent. “I just look at my friends now and some of them can’t even read, and it scares me. So I try my best to make any effort to read to my kids.” The next step is to hire and train additional facilitators to conduct programs in their own communities, thus building capacity within Aboriginal communities and supporting the revival of Aboriginal heritage and culture through language and literacy. On the other side of the country in Chilliwack B.C., The Central Gateway for Families Project has developed a unique approach to family literacy that integrates a number of programs into an inner-city elementary community school during school hours. All programs under the project umbrella build on the existing knowledge, strengths, skills and cultural practices of the participating families. To support both the adult participants and their children, a Preschool and an Infant/Toddler program run alongside other program components. These programs give the children who attend a chance to grow physically, cognitively, socially and in language/literacy. Prenatal nutrition, understanding child development, academic skills, English as a Second Language, computer literacy, family reading, communication skills, life skills, parenting skills, and employment readiness are available to adult participants. Parents and children also enjoy important time together, including library visits and other educational field trips. In addition, the project offers a community kitchen now run solely by parent participants and a summer recreation program. The most recent evolution of the project has parents going into K- 7 classrooms, volunteering to work alongside their older children. With all this going on, it’s hardly surprising that it can look “somewhat chaotic” at times, according to Director Julia Dodge. “If you walked down the hallways most days, things would be very busy and noisy – could be babies crying, could be children and adults laughing, could be singing, could be cooking and sharing a meal. If you asked participants, you would likely find it is the calmest, sanest part of their day.” Families report that their participation in the program has given them a new understanding of what nurtures children’s learning development and has encouraged them to make supportive changes in their home environment and practices. A number of parents have attested to the change they see in themselves. As they attend programs in an environment that recognizes and respects their knowledge and abilities, they readily offer one another many types of support including friendship, encouragement, time for self-care, child care and meals. Their participation fosters a sense of connection and commitment not only to the school but also to the community as they begin to envision the kind of trustworthy, caring, friendly place in which they want to live and work. Family literacy programs reduce barriers to participation and retention. Like the Literacy C.O.W. program in Edmonton, accessibility is an important goal of START (Set Time Aside to Read Together), a family literacy program in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. This eight week program takes place in seven locations, each with different clientele, and provides activities for adults and preschool children both separately and together. All activities focus on improving the literacy skills of both the adults and pre-school children and developing a lifelong love of books and reading. Program facilitator Emilie Wall, affirms: “We adjust our program according to our clientele. We travel to the Young Parents’ Resource Centre for single moms and dads, and to the Hutterite Colonies, as they feel more comfortable in familiar surroundings. The sessions at the Hutterite Colonies are ESL sessions because the preschoolers speak only German at home; as a result we do a lot more repetition and encourage the children to do a lot of speaking.” All of the family literacy programs described place a strong emphasis on encouraging retention of families by providing a combination of appropriate supports such as babysitting service for families with young children, food and snacks for families during each session, transportation to and from the program, and calling families each week the night before the program. One parent describes how they support each other in attending the program, reporting that if a parent/family missed a session, when she saw them at the market she would say, “Where were you last night? We missed ya. You gotta come next time, it’s fun.” Facilitators often award certificates of participation at the end of the sessions, and give families books as celebratory gifts. Family literacy programs encourage community involvement, partnerships, support and referrals. Quality family literacy programs recognize the interrelatedness of education, health, economic and social issues. As such, they strongly encourage a range of partnerships and collaborations among service providers that support both adults and children in reaching their full potential. This approach provides increased and more accessible opportunities for families, and maximizes resources and services. Organizers of The Central Gateway for Families Project in B.C. comment that their program is a “living example of how numerous interested parties can engage in partnerships that bring about an opportunity for multi-layered learning and support to take place at an inner-city elementary community school.” Four key partners collaborate to deliver the project: University College of the Fraser Valley, School District #33, Chilliwack Community Services, and Fraser Health Authority. Other local organizations involved through financial contributions, volunteering, or referrals include the Society for Community Living, Kiwanis, Restorative Justice, university nursing and social work programs, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Community Access Program and a local restaurant.
Family literacy programs engage in ongoing assessment, evaluation and documentation strategies. One of the greatest challenges for the family literacy field in Canada has been the lack of research to support the claims for the differences that programs make in families’ lives. Creative collaborations are essential to family literacy programs and consist of sharing costs, resources, space, personnel, participants, information, statistics and ideas. The 2006 results of a study by the Canadian Centre for Research on Literacy at the University of Alberta (Family Literacy Matters: A Longitudinal Parent-Child Literacy Intervention Study) demonstrate the effectiveness of the Learning Together: Read and Write with Your Child program offered by the Centre for Family Literacy. The study was undertaken in the fall of 2001, extended over five years and compared five participant groups of children and their parents to a comparison group of children and parents. In all, 158 adults and children from five communities participated in the study. Learning Together was offered three mornings or afternoons a week, totalling 90 hours over three months. It comprised three integrated components: adult learning, preschool education and parent-child joint sessions. Participants were parents with low education and income and their preschool children who were at risk of not succeeding in school. Learning Together is built on the strengths of participants, and takes into consideration the social and cultural backgrounds and goals of the parents. It integrates into its curriculum elements that support positive early intervention programming, addresses both adult and child developmental needs, and offers parents oral language and literacy activities to incorporate within the family and community to enhance their own and their children’s education.
Family literacy programs recruit, train, and retain high quality staff who can meet the diverse learning needs of participating family members. The need for training and professional development consistently arises as a critical issue among family literacy practitioners. In addition to program-specific training available throughout Canada, family literacy practitioners recognize the need for comprehensive leadership training that addresses the wide range of skills and expertise required for effective program delivery. They also cite the need for reflection on practice that training encourages. Promising practices are revealed through research, but as one informant in a recent Research in Practice in Adult Literacy project put it: “Practitioners need to do more than just read about research – they need professional development to be able to implement it.” Family literacy practitioners also want first-rate resources, tools and professional recognition to enhance the capacity of this complex field to fulfill its promise for Canadian families. To address these needs, in 1999 Edmonton’s Centre for Family Literacy developed a comprehensive practitioner training program. With a grant from the National Literacy Secretariat, this training was expanded when some of the most knowledgeable practitioners and academics from across the country were recruited to help develop Foundational Training in Family Literacy. The intent of this core training was to provide the underpinnings of a wide range of program delivery, and to bring credibility and professionalism to this rapidly developing field. In 2001, practitioners from across the country participated in a Train-the-Trainer Institute in Pictou, Nova Scotia, and returned to their home provinces and communities enthusiastic about the promise of Foundational Trainingfor the literacy field. Over the next few years, several provinces delivered over two dozen regional training sessions. The program is also delivered on-line to enable more access. Further, La fédération canadienne pour l’alphabétisation en français (FCAF), in partnership with the Centre for Family Literacy, translated and adapted Foundational Trainingfor a francophone minority context and is now regularly delivering the training. Practitioners who have taken this training agree that it has had a valuable impact on their professional development and, consequently, on their programs. Donna Arnold, Executive Director and Family Literacy Coordinator of the Henday Association for Lifelong Learning in Alberta, says, “I felt the course content was put together exceptionally well… It took you through a wonderful journey of expanding your thinking … as well as increasing your knowledge. I feel that my whole outlook has changed. Instead of family literacy groups, I am seeing individuals and family units... I have more insight into what makes them and their needs unique. I am more flexible in my thinking and my approach.” Anne Ainsworth, Early Literacy Specialist for the Kenora/Rainy River Districts in Ontario, found that her attitude has changed since taking the training: “When working with families, what’s important is focusing on their strengths rather than trying to go in and feeling I’ll ‘fix’ the families. When implementing workshops, I try to incorporate feedback and input from participants, valuing what’s being said and reminding them that they are the experts of their children.” Dr. Rosemarie Duguay from the Université de Moncton has engaged in an evaluation of delivery of Foundational Trainingin the francophone community and writes: “The training delivered by the FCAF was very well-received at the field level. Both practitioners and managers suggested that training sessions on family literacy be offered to other individuals working with francophone children and parents, including child care workers, kindergarten teachers and social workers.” Because of the growing interest in this training, plans are afoot to make additions and revisions to the training materials and hold two more train-the-trainer events. In addition, a steering committee is exploring options for obtaining certification for Foundational Trainingin college or university programs. Vancouver Community College, in partnership with the Centre for Family Literacy, 2010 Legacies Now-Literacy Now and Literacy B.C., is leading the way with a pilot Foundations in Family Literacy certificate program, running throughout the coming year. If the guidelines for quality family literacy programming we have described are the foundation for family literacy in Canada, then the participant families are the building blocks reaching ever higher and the practitioners are the cement that binds it together. A participant of The Central Gateway for Families Project speaks powerfully for all high-quality family literacy programs: “While there are many reasons I can give for recommending this program, the first is that you and your family deserve it… Everyone deserves to live a healthy and productive life… Even if you have come from the darkest, hardest, cruelest place, you deserve to be a happy healthy person. Everyone has a gift to share with the world; the trick is feeling secure enough to share it… By opening ourselves to the world a little at a time we can begin to see all we have to offer. We can change the world when we learn to be flexible and work with all those around us. Only with amazing teachers and the group support have I been able to grow so much. Each person has been an integral part of helping me grow and learn. My gratitude cannot be solely expressed in words.” This is the promise of family literacy fulfilled.
“Literacy is the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.” Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations Across Canada, there are thousands of literacybased organizations, all of which strive to improve literacy in individuals, families and specific groups. Below are just a few of the larger organizations, which are grouped according to their main focus. Supporting literacy and learning in your own community is just a click away. Databases/Directories National Adult Literacy Database (NALD) offers a digital library that links the literacy community to form a pan-Canadian adult literacy information system. It houses an extensive library, a complete list of literacy organizations within Canada and beyond. It designs and hosts websites for literacy organizations, develops tools to support literacy and publicizes literacy-related activities and events. www.nald.ca/familit/ Family Literacy Directory, called Family Connections, was first published in 1998. It offers a list of over 250 community- based family literacy programs across Canada, searchable on their website’s database. It is supported by NALD. www.nald.ca/Famlit/common/intro.asp Funding National Literacy Secretariat, supported by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, strives to build capacity for literacy opportunities across Canada by funding innovative literacy projects. www.hrsdc .gc.ca/en/hip/lld/nls/About/aboutus.shtml Research Canadian Council on Learning is a national, independent, non-profit corporation that works to provide Canadians with the most current information about effective approaches to learning for learners, educators, employers and policy-makers. It operates five knowledge centres focused on five themes: Aboriginal Learning, Adult Learning, Early Childhood Learning, Health and Learning, and Work and Learning. www.ccl-cca.ca Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network is a not-for-profit corporation made up of an integrated network of researchers, practitioners and government policy makers in early childhood literacy and learning in Canada. The network is committed to improving the language and literacy skills of Canadian children through evidence-based practices that will enable them to contribute more effectively to the social and economic life of their communities. www.cllrnet.ca National Programs Frontier College is a nationwide, volunteer-based literacy organization that has been active since 1899. Believing that literacy is a fundamental right, Frontier College provides access to this right by reaching out to people across Canada, whether parents and children, youth, migrant workers, adults or people whose second language is English. www.frontiercollege.ca The Hanen Centre is a world-wide, Canada-based charitable organization committed to supporting and collaborating with the adults in the lives of young children, especially those with language delays, so they can develop the best possible language, social and literacy skills. It does this through parent and caregiver language development programs, by training professionals and speechlanguage pathologists to deliver programs, by developing user-friendly learning materials and through research. A language and literacy calendar is available in French, English and Spanish through the Hanen Centre under ‘Hanen Resources’. www.hanen.org Laubach Literacy of Canada is a national, charitable organization that works to improve basic literacy skills to meet changing Canadian needs. It trains one-on-one volunteer literacy tutors, and offers workplace literacy projects, family literacy initiatives and peer youth tutor-ing clubs. It operates the New Readers Bookstore, based in Ottawa, which provides literacy resources to teachers and adult students. The Ben Wicks' Born to Read series was developed in collaboration with Laubach. www.laubach.ca The Centre for Family Literacy offers an array of programs, plus training and research, all of which build, develop and improve literacy in Alberta, where it is based, and across Canada. The underlying belief of this organization is that literacy develops in families first. Their efforts help families grow and prosper. www.famlit.ca The Parent-Child Mother Goose Program brings parents and babies or young children together through songs, stories and rhymes all across Canada. Behind the scenes, the program trains teachers, maintains the network of local programs and provides support to members. www.nald.ca/mothergooseprogram/start.htm Early Learning Canada is a family literacy/healthy child development program designed for parents and other adults working with young children from birth to age 6 and their families, especially children whose learning skills are at risk. This community-based program uses a train-the trainer method and offers many accessible resources. www.elc-apec.ca Advocacy ABC Canada Literacy Foundation is a national charity committed to promoting literacy to the general public and to the private sector through public awareness programs, national literacy awareness campaigns, support to local literacy groups and research. It promotes Family Literacy Day held each year on January 27th. www.abccanada.org The Movement for Canadian Literacy (MCL) is a national non-profit organization representing literacy coalitions, organizations, and individuals from across Canada involved with adult literacy education. It strives to be a national voice for literacy through networking, research, government liaison, learner development, communication, collaboration and capacity-building. www.literacy.ca Parent/Caregiver Resources Invest in Kids has developed a number of information resources for both parents and professionals to support children’s healthy development and learning from conception to five years of age. It also has developed numerous programs that offer a positive approach to parenting. www.investinkids.ca The Canadian Child Care Federation has created many resource sheets for parents and caregivers, many of which support early childhood learning. All are available online at www.qualiteservicesdegardecananda.ca/publications/resourcesheets_en.html.
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Donald Jamieson is the CEO and Scientific Director
of the Canadian Language & Literacy Research
Network (CLLRNet). He is Professor in the Faculty
of Health Sciences, Communication Sciences and
Disorders at the University of Western Ontario. His
current interest is in literacy in Canadian society and
the economy.
Learning to read is one of the most important skills
that children acquire, and literacy is crucial for success
in school. But children do not first come to the
task of learning to read when they begin formal schooling,
such as in kindergarten. Rather, they have been
acquiring a host of pre-literacy skills throughout their
preschool years, and these pre-literacy skills provide an
important foundation for the task of literacy acquisition.
Many of these foundation skills are learned at home;
thus, parents play an important role in helping children
learn some key skills upon
which literacy is built.
An old school bus, painted like a Holstein cow,
trundles into a city housing project in northeast
Edmonton. Rose and her two preschoolers wave
excitedly to the driver as she pulls into the parking lot.
Janice, the Classroom on Wheels (C.O.W.) coordinator,
jumps down the steps of the bus smiling warmly and
says, “Well, it’s nice to see you all so bright and early
again!” Four-year old Kayleigh clambers onto the bus
and rushes to the carpeted area at the back shouting,
“Let’s sing rhymes.” Joshua, aged two, heads straight for
the basket of board books, quickly digs out Where’s Spot?
and chants, “Read, read, read.” As Janice welcomes two
more families, Rose browses the shelves of books lining
the bus and takes several to share with Joshua and
another child who has joined him. The family stays for
about an hour participating in a rhymes and songs session,
listening to Owl Babies read with gusto by Janice,
and chatting with other families about neighbourhood
events and registration for kindergarten.
Get Set Learn!, a family literacy program offered by
Project READ Literacy Network in Ontario, has been
running successfully in three different sites twice a year
since 2004. Coordinator Lorri Sauvé, states: “In 2003, the
local adult literacy service providers noticed that there
was a lack of family literacy programming in the
Waterloo Region since the Ontario Ministry of Training,
Colleges and Universities would not fund such programs.
With this need in mind, we approached a family
resource center and the Municipal Government to see if
a partnership could be worked out. They were enthusiastic
and offered child care plus a parent room so that the
program could begin.” Creative collaborations are essential
to family literacy programs and consist of sharing
costs, resources, space, personnel, participants, information,
statistics and ideas. Get Set Learn! now operates in
partnership with three host sites, the local welfare
agency and a native resource center.
The study confirmed the
powerful combined effect of
parents’ education and parents’
reading ability on their
children’s reading ability
before starting school. The
Learning Together program
positively affected literacy
development for those children at or below the 70th to
80th percentile. The results also showed that parents
acquired and implemented more frequent and varied
literacy activities in the home after participating in the
program. Parents reported reading more often themselves
and being more confident and secure in their
abilities to help their children achieve pre-literacy skills.
They also expressed a desire to learn more ways to
improve their own literacy levels, which ideally is the
two-pronged focus of comprehensive family literacy
programs.